What Failure Has Taught Me as a Software Engineer ??

The other day I published an article titled "Taking Risks and How They Get Me Where I Want to Go", without recalling that with risk, comes failure.

A lot of it.

Let's not sugarcoat it: even when there's no risk involved, failure sucks.

At the same time, it's not an end-all, be-all. At least, it doesn't have to be.

That feeling of I screwed up...again can easily consume you and leave you with your head down, if you let it. And we all go through moments like that. Whether it's in your personal life, a business venture, or setting foot into a new career, failure seems to be one of those things that can be outside of our control, no matter how well we want to do and how badly we wish to succeed. it can be something as small as being told "no" after asking someone out, or it can be something bigger like failing to put enough gas in your car, only to be left stranded on the side of the road.

So....what now? Where to go?

Another way to ask this that could be explored could be: what does this failure mean?

I asked myself that same question the other day. I was about to take an online technical assessment and I was super excited about it. I expected to do well, at least well enough to pass. Took some time to answer all the questions, viewed the results, and....I didn't pass.

**sad trombone sound**

I had missed the passing score by ten points. I wasn't sure how to react. I just sat there, stunned and kind of in awe. By ten points? hmm.

The twenty-year-old me probably would have started crying in despair. In this moment, though, the sadness wasn't strong enough. It was more....curiosity. I obviously wasn't going to move to the next round of the interviewing process for this job, and it was a job with a company I felt particularly excited to possibly be a part of. Knowing that I wasn't able to progress this time around did suck in the moment.

It was that moment I asked myself what this failure could mean. I gave myself a couple of minutes to feel the pain and then decided that I couldn't afford to waste time crying over it. The reason? Because I went into that assessment knowing that I gave it my all.

So the answer? That failure didn't mean anything. Not to me. My intentions were rock-solid going in, and I knew that there would be other opportunities in the future to re-apply and re-take this assessment.

I happened to stumble across a very interesting article the other day that I have linked below as a source and was too good not to share. The article introduced me to the power of reframing, a technique in which people can creatively find ways to use their current situation to create an even better one going forward--particularly after a failed experience.

While I cannot explain the reframing concept nearly as eloquently as the author who wrote the article, one quote in particularly popped out at me: "Human beings tend to attach certain meanings to experiences. We say, 'This happened, so it must mean ______.' In actuality, there may be an infinite number of ways to interpret any experience. We frame the events in our life based on the ways we’ve decided to perceive similar experiences in the past, forming habitual patterns we repeat throughout our entire lives."

The takeaway: We are all human. And humans are flawed creatures. Failure is a part of life, and it sucks. But it doesn't have to mean anything--anything terrible--unless we let it.

Source: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/why-meaning-is-everything