25A: Celebrating Failure

1. This past semester, I came across failure while applying for internships. As I’m approaching my senior year, it’s pretty critical that I get some internships secured and have heard so from my professors, but it was pretty rough coming back to the rejection letters. It’s important to understand that the world is going through a pandemic right now and unemployment is happening left and right so it’s definitely not the ideal time to be gaining access to positions, but it was still a tough pill to swallow.

2. I learned that not everything can go my way according to agenda all the time. As a perfectionist, I like to always have everything laid out and scheduled, but events like this teach me to let go of things beyond my control and continue pursuing important goals even if I don’t know what the outcome will be.

3. Usually, I handle failure by stressing out a lot (reiterating my perfectionistic habits), and I get discouraged and try to compensate by distracting myself with other things to get my mind off the failure. I learned through this entrepreneurship course, however, that you need to encounter lots of “no’s” before you reach the “yesses,” and that’s actually a vital step because it teaches you how to alter your product/service before offering it to customers. This way, we can keep improving upon ourselves before reaching our final destination.