Failing Successfully

I was reading for one of my classes one afternoon. My roommate’s phone rings and it happens to be my little sister; she answers the phone and is greeted with my little sister sobbing on the other side… I immediately call my little sister on my phone and as it’s dialing I’m thinking of all the worst case scenarios that could be happening - parents got into an accident, house was robbed, dog died, grandparents are in the hospital, etc. As I prepare myself, my little sister answers the phone, still sobbing. I say, “Abbie, you need to tell me what happened.” She gasps for air in between tears and responds… “I failed.”

Now this got me thinking about how many people struggle with failure. You know everyone struggles with it because it happens to everyone. What’s the worst about failure is that it is apart of human nature so it’s inevitable. No matter how much time and effort you put into a relationship or subject, it still will happen and you will still get the same feeling. The feeling of not being good enough or that you’re not smart enough or like giving up because there’s no point anymore. But what happens after you failed? Yes, you may have failed a test, lost a relationship or just flat out messed up…but what now?

The thing about failure is that it’s not the act of failing that reveals your character. What does define you is how you pick yourself up from failing. If everyone gave up after they failed, nothing in this world would be accomplished. Just like I told my little sister that day she called me, “So you failed, there’s nothing you can do now because it’s already happened. Now it’s time we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, understand what went wrong, and try again.” Yes, it always scary going back to something you’ve failed at, but that’s life. Don’t fear failure; learn how to fail successfully.

Stay tuned for more. :)

New Beginnings

When you go into college, you think you have everything figured out…your goals, your dreams, who you are as a person…but when you actually get there, you realize you don’t know anything. This is why:

When you step onto your college campus for the first time, you get this feeling of excitement. New beginnings, new people, nothing defining you, what could be better right? Well, unfortunately, with beginnings come a lot of new fears.

Yes, there are new people but at the same time there’s no one who really knows you. You are no longer with the same people you’ve been going to high school with for four years. This may sound good to some people, but at least your high school peers knew you. The hardest part about college is you’re away from home, not with your family anymore. When you have a bad day, you can’t go home to your family and tell them about it; you’re by yourself. You no longer have your family and friends there to remind you of who you are when you get a little lost.

Yes, there is nothing defining you…sometimes that’s scary. What’s crazy is that you don’t really know what defines you until you are put into a situation where no one knows anything about you, your failures, your successes, your strengths, your weaknesses, or your past.

During my experience, I didn’t realize how much I defined myself in my successes. When I went to college, no one knew what I’ve accomplished, no one knew what HOSA was, and no one knew what I had overcome. There was absolutely nothing defining me and no one to remind me of who I was. Fortunately, I never lost sight of my values but I did begin to question what my goals were or who I really wanted to become. Since I was in this place where no one knew me, I now had to define myself and build a reputation that these new people would know me as. So I had to ask myself, what do I really want to do with my future? What are my passions? What qualities do I want to see myself possessing?

I’m not writing this to freak anyone out about college but to prepare them. Unfortunately, I still don’t have the answers to my questions, but I strangely feel content with where I’m at. My entire life, I forced myself to have every aspect of my life figured out, but now I feel like it’s okay not to know. Now is the time to take your time and really discover the answers to your questions. Instead of focusing on what you don’t know, focus on what you do know. Focus on the life you have now. Make memories, create experiences, seek adventure, and learn to live. Everything will fall into its place so there is no point in worrying about it.

Stay on this journey with me as I post about the adventures life takes me on.