The first few weeks of college can be rough.

New professors, new living space, new classes, new friends, just a whole bucketful of “new” going on, and if you’re anything like me, “new” can also be intimidating. Sure, it’s an equally exhilarating experience to try something completely foreign, but it can also mean, “potential for failure".  As a perfectionist, “failure” is a word and a concept that I hate. To me, if I work hard enough, failure won’t be an option. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work. This summer I learned to look at failure a little differently.

At the beginning of the summer, I had the opportunity to meet up with a woman that I would consider one of my role models. Emily embodied the type of woman that I hoped I would someday be: confident, accomplished, motivated and willing to break out of the expected to achieve her goals. As I sipped my chai tea at the one and only coffee shop in my hometown I asked, “So, is it possible to major in being Emily?  You always seem to be great at everything you try!” She laughed, and replied simply, “That’s only because I’ve failed at a lot of things. I found what I was good at by trying and failing a whole bunch.” I laughed and agreed that failure usually taught us more about ourselves, and we continued with our conversation. But until her comment had a few months to linger in the back of my mind, I didn’t fully appreciate it.               

Failure: a word that sends me, and most of us, running in the opposite direction. But after my conversation with Emily I’ve been rethinking my outlook on failure.  What if we looked at our failures as an opportunity for growth? A chance to say, “I did my best, but I need to continue working.” Perhaps too much success allows us to grow stagnant. Comfortable. Content. Mediocre. Failure says, “Nice try, but let’s try even harder the next time.” Or perhaps we can look at our failures as a source of guidance in our lives, maybe our failures will simultaneously point us to our strengths. For example, I cut out the entire medical field from my future when I almost passed out during CPR training (not even kidding).  While embarrassing, that experience saved me from wasting time on a skill and profession I was clearly not meant for.

That being said, failure is never going to be fun to deal with. It’s okay to feel upset and disappointed when things don’t go as planned. The danger, however, is letting those stockpiled insecurities hold us back from ever leaving our comfort zones. I encourage you, and myself, to continue accepting new challenges. You might fail. You might even fail miserably. But wouldn’t you rather take that chance than go through life wondering “what if”?

College will, and probably already has, thrown a lot of “new” at you. You may have already stumbled a few times. However, instead of looking at all of college and life’s challenges as something to fear, let’s change our attitude. Let’s look at our mistakes and learn from them. Let’s use our disappointments as the fuel to do better the next time. Let’s view the “no’s” we’ve been given as arrows pointing to the “yes’s”. In the words of Emily, “You just have to dive in and find your niche. We all have immense gifts and innate talent, they just might not manifest in a predictable way.” 

Failure is inevitable, it’s how we react that will ultimately be the deciding factor.