Failure is the single most terrifying word to me. It instills the same amount of terror in me that small spaces instill to people with claustrophobia. All my life, I've struggled to perfect everything I've strived for or been involved in--this includes my school work. I fought for perfection all throughout elementary, middle, and high school. I thought I had achieved this perfection when I was able to get all A's in my first two years in college. At that point in my life, I was seeing B's as failing. While this was helping with my actual GPA and my college applications, it was not helping with my mental health.
This mindset villainized any form of failure to me. Due to this, anytime I got a low grade it felt like a physical blow. It was this after a while that kept me shooting for A's, not the actual want for achievement or learning. This mindset, however, was very dangerous as it caused me to completely fall apart when I got my first ever C in a class.
At the beginning of the semester, I had been fairly confident in my success in the class. However, as time passed I realized that it was a very possible outcome that I might fail the course. When I say fail here I'm not referring to my "idea" of failure like a letter grade of B. No, I was facing the possibility of getting a D or F in the course.
For my major, I would have to get a C- to actually pass the course. This class was necessary for my major so I couldn't drop out and just take it later to get a better grade. I had to keep at it no matter what my grades were during it. For the first three months of the class, I was scared because each grade I got back was lower than I thought was "good" or even just "decent".
I tried everything I could to learn as much as I could and figure out where I was going wrong in the course. I felt like my life was spiraling out of control. Every day after class was like a nightmare trying to get my homework finished correctly and trying to study for quizzes and tests. With each passing day, I just felt more and more lost. I tried going to tutoring, but my pride wouldn't allow me to get all the help I needed. This is one of the places I went wrong.
Always seek out help when you need it--no matter how small the misunderstanding may be. Misunderstandings add up like a snowball effect, until one small thing like part of a homework problem, has become an entire chapter's worth of confusion. Asking for help is not a bad thing.
Due to this unhealthy study/homework pattern and lack of asking for help, I did end up getting low grades. Each poor or low grade caused me to feel less and less intelligent. At no point was I ready to give up, though, I kept studying and changing up my work habits. It was this determination that was able to keep me from completely giving up.
Before this class, a situation like this just wouldn't be "good" at all, but this "failure" caused me to appreciate what I was able to learn and not what grades I was able to get. This new mindset made me "okay" with my "failures" and taught me to not react so negatively to society's perception of "bad grades." Yes, a C is not as good as an A on the grading scale, but it's what you learn that's important not necessarily what grade you get in a class. This mindset helped to reduce my stress about grading and focus more on learning the course materials. My grades didn't improve dramatically or anything, but I was able to start better understanding topics and getting good grades on some things. I was also able to keep my mental health in check more than in the first few months of the course.
Towards the end of the class, I talked with my instructor and we worked out a plan for studying to help me pass the class. When we assessed my actual grades, it ended up that I was never doing quite as bad as I had thought throughout the class. It was possible for me to pass the class and not just at the minimum level. I ended up taking my instructor's studying advice for the final and passed the class with a C.
Failure is just your own perception of something. Don't let the fear of failure hold you back from doing anything. Life, and especially college, is about learning, not just passing. Sometimes to learn, you have to fail. In any learning situation try your hardest to learn what you can and ask for help, if necessary, but don't let failure hold you back from even attempting or finishing something you've started--it may not turn out as bad as you may think.
