Confessions of a failure

On my eighteenth birthday, I sat my driver’s licence test.

And I failed.

It was the most mortifying moment of my life. I’d passed the written test with a perfect score and was almost at the end of the driving part—having nailed a reverse parallel park—when the instructor said, “Ok Leah, can you please pull over?”

I thought it was part of the test.

“Did you see that stop sign at the intersection we just went through?”

My heart started to thump and my stomach dropped. No. No. This can’t be happening. NO!

I’d looked for a sign, hadn’t seen one, and so followed the rules for unsigned intersections: I slowed down to an almost-but-not-complete stop, looked both ways (no traffic), and then took the left-hand turn as instructed.

Apparently, there had been a stop sign—about five metres back from the road and up on the nature strip. I’d totally missed it. Not only had I now failed my licence on my birthday, I wasn’t even allowed to drive the car back to VicRoads. The instructor had to. OH MY GOD.

I was devastated. Inconsolable. A total mess.

I swore my parents to secrecy and begged VicRoads to let me redo the test that same day. I cried—a lot.

That afternoon, with puffy, tear-filled eyes and shaky hands, I redid the driving test and passed easily. As far as anyone except Mum and Dad were concerned, I’d passed it first go.

I told no one about the failure. Not my sisters. Not my boyfriend. Not my friends. No one except my parents was ever to know.

That’s how warped my perspective of failure was at the time.

You see, I didn’t fail things. I was a perfectionist, a straight-A+ student. Even an A was a disappointment. My expectations of myself were ridiculously high—more extreme than anyone else’s could ever be. The pressure was immense, and it was all self-inflicted.

Looking back now, I shake my head, laugh, and am thankful that my view of failure has changed. Immensely.

While I still have high expectations of myself, I now call myself a ‘recovering perfectionist’ and see failure not as my greatest fear but as an essential and beneficial part of life.

What felt like the end of the world at 18 is something I endeavour to celebrate now. And I teach others to do the same.

Many people see failure as something to avoid at all costs, and it holds us back. Fear becomes an excuse to stay in our comfort zone, a reason not to pursue what we want in life. So we don’t go for that job, we don’t try that challenge, we don’t say yes to that opportunity.

But failure’s not the monster we make it out to be. It’s how we learn. It’s how we grow and develop.

In truth, it’s only failure if we don’t try at all or don’t learn from our mistakes. (I tell you what, I’ve never missed a stop sign since that day!)

There are always opportunities in failure. We just need to look for them. Each time we fail, we’re closer to success.

These days, when I catch myself asking, “What if I fail?” I counter with, “What if I fly?” Better to try, fail, learn, and fully experience life than to never try at all.

The most successful people rarely succeed by avoiding failure. They get there by taking calculated risks, trying, failing, learning, improving—and repeating that cycle.

They fail their way to success.

Today, some 25 years on, I see how misguided my 18-year-old self was in her perfectionist ways. Why? Because perfection doesn’t exist! Pursuing it only sets you up to fail.

Now, I strive to be a “completionist,” someone who aims for excellence but doesn’t need perfection. It's this mindset that allowed me to write and publish two books.

I eventually told my boyfriend and sisters I’d failed my licence, about a year after that dreadful day.

Then everyone found out, when my parents included the story in my 21st birthday speech. By then, I could see how ridiculous my response was and have a laugh at my own expense.

And now you can too.n my eighteenth birthday, I sat my driver’s licence test.

And I failed.

It was the most mortifying moment of my life. I’d passed the written test with a perfect score and was almost at the end of the driving part—having nailed a reverse parallel park—when the instructor said, “Ok Leah, can you please pull over?”

I thought it was part of the test.

“Did you see that stop sign at the intersection we just went through?”

My heart started to thump and my stomach dropped. No. No. This can’t be happening. NO!

I’d looked for a sign, hadn’t seen one, and so followed the rules for unsigned intersections: I slowed down to an almost-but-not-complete stop, looked both ways (no traffic), and then took the left-hand turn as instructed.

Apparently, there had been a stop sign—about five metres back from the road and up on the nature strip. I’d totally missed it. Not only had I now failed my licence on my birthday, I wasn’t even allowed to drive the car back to VicRoads. The instructor had to. OH MY GOD.

I was devastated. Inconsolable. A total mess.

I swore my parents to secrecy and begged VicRoads to let me redo the test that same day. I cried—a lot.

That afternoon, with puffy, tear-filled eyes and shaky hands, I redid the driving test and passed easily. As far as anyone except Mum and Dad were concerned, I’d passed it first go.

I told no one about the failure. Not my sisters. Not my boyfriend. Not my friends. No one except my parents was ever to know.

That’s how warped my perspective of failure was at the time.

You see, I didn’t fail things. I was a perfectionist, a straight-A+ student. Even an A was a disappointment. My expectations of myself were ridiculously high—more extreme than anyone else’s could ever be. The pressure was immense, and it was all self-inflicted.

Looking back now, I shake my head, laugh, and am thankful that my view of failure has changed. Immensely.

While I still have high expectations of myself, I now call myself a ‘recovering perfectionist’ and see failure not as my greatest fear but as an essential and beneficial part of life.

What felt like the end of the world at 18 is something I endeavour to celebrate now. And I teach others to do the same.

Many people see failure as something to avoid at all costs, and it holds us back. Fear becomes an excuse to stay in our comfort zone, a reason not to pursue what we want in life. So we don’t go for that job, we don’t try that challenge, we don’t say yes to that opportunity.

But failure’s not the monster we make it out to be. It’s how we learn. It’s how we grow and develop.

In truth, it’s only failure if we don’t try at all or don’t learn from our mistakes. (I tell you what, I’ve never missed a stop sign since that day!)

There are always opportunities in failure. We just need to look for them. Each time we fail, we’re closer to success.

These days, when I catch myself asking, “What if I fail?” I counter with, “What if I fly?” Better to try, fail, learn, and fully experience life than to never try at all.

The most successful people rarely succeed by avoiding failure. They get there by taking calculated risks, trying, failing, learning, improving—and repeating that cycle.

They fail their way to success.

Today, some 25 years on, I see how misguided my 18-year-old self was in her perfectionist ways. Why? Because perfection doesn’t exist! Pursuing it only sets you up to fail.

Now, I strive to be a “completionist,” someone who aims for excellence but doesn’t need perfection. It's this mindset that allowed me to write and publish two books.

I eventually told my boyfriend and sisters I’d failed my licence, about a year after that dreadful day.

Then everyone found out, when my parents included the story in my 21st birthday speech. By then, I could see how ridiculous my response was and have a laugh at my own expense.

And now you can too.