How to Fail Successfully

It was March 6th, 2015 when I encountered my first FBLA failure. 5 days earlier I had interviewed to become an FBLA Arizona State officer. If I had made it through the interview, I was fully prepared to create my booth and begin to campaign for my spot at the State Leadership Conference. I remember the interview extremely well, all of the shaking in my seat, the nerves running throughout my body, actively avoiding eye contact with the interviewers as if that would somehow help me, yet despite all of these flaws I still held out hope that I made it through. They had told us that we would receive an email regarding whether we made it through on March 6th. On March 6th, I was sitting in the passenger seat of my older brother's 2004 Ford Mustang waiting for him to get back from talking to his friends so we could go home. While casually playing angry birds on my windows phone, the game randomly froze, and in the top half inch of the screen, a magenta banner came down with the envelope symbol. At that moment, my heart rate accelerated and my mind raced with campaign ideas. I pressed the envelope, thus beginning the slowest website loading screen that my 15 year old self had ever seen. The message was sent by FBLA Arizona, this was it. After mentally preparing myself, I pressed the email, and my heart dropped, as the first five words read the dreaded, We regret to inform you..

It took a little while to process it all and register that it was over for the year, and my first reaction was hopelessness. I thought that I wasn't good enough, and that I wouldn't ever make it. The perception of myself that became prominent in my mind was that I was second-rate, so I gave up. 2 months later, my chapter held elections for chapter office roles, I still wanted to be involved in FBLA, so I ran. To my surprise I won the presidency, and at that moment I realized that instead of giving up on my goals, I would use what I learned from that failure to succeed. My resume began to compile itself with accomplishments, roles, and many event wins until the following year, I had confidence that last year’s failure would not repeat itself. Due to the work, success came, as interviews were passed and campaigning began, and at the end of the State Leadership Conference, my name was the last called to be an FBLA Arizona State officer. By using failure to my advantage, I was able to accomplish my goals. By not giving up and instead seeing failure as an opportunity to better myself, I was able to improve and eventually reach my dreams, and by using failure this way, any goal is within reach.

Most people cope with failure in one of the three following ways: arrogance, hopelessness, or perseverance. These coping methods can determine how successful a person is, as failure is a staple of life.

Method 1: Arrogance

Some people refuse to accept that any failure of theirs lies on them. They will go out of their way to blame almost everyone else without giving themselves any fault. This is an extremely harmful method and leads to no self-improvement. The person who copes this way will act as if they are perfect and that any failure is a result from everyone else being wrong.

Method 2: Hopelessness

Yet another bad method to coping, hopelessness is where someone just gives up. These people see any failure as a sign from the universe that success is unattainable and that instead of bettering themselves, they should just quit and focus on something new. This is harmful because it may prevent them from trying again.

Method 3: Perseverance

Perseverance is the preferred method for coping with failure, this method encourages the person to try again and to better themselves in order to succeed the next time. This method has a direct link to success as it encourages never giving up and leads to achieving your goals.

How to Cope with Failure

Step 1: Calm Down and Think Clearly

The first reaction after failing may range from emotions such as anger, sadness, or ignorance, but the most beneficial thing you can do is clear your mind from these emotions. Think past the feelings that block you from improvement. Instead of thinking " how could I have lost to them" think "why did I lose to them." The answers to those questions will place you a lot closer to self-improvement.

Step 2: Think About How to Improve

Next think about the event and reflect on why you may have failed. Think about if it is something you can improve upon. Ponder ways to better yourself for your next try. If you lost out in an interview, think about improving your question answering ability or your human capital, if you lost in a sport think about how you might improve your technique to be better prepared for the next game.

Step 3: Practice Again and Again

When pondering what you need to improve, make a mental plan on how you will better yourself. If you lost a Public Speaking competition, make a plan about how you will practice a five minute speech to yourself every day. Keep these plans in your mind as you attempt to better yourself.

Step 4: Try Again

Gear up for your next attempt and go in with confidence. Forget about the past and your prior failures. Remember that this is a new and improved you, and you now have the tools to succeed. Forget about the interviews that didn't work out well, forget about everything that didn't go your way before and assume it will go your way this time.

Step 5: Never Give Up

This is the most crucial step of all. Regardless what the outcome of your retry is, never give up. Repeat the process, improve yourself over and over again. If you show an unwillingness to quit and a consistent drive to be the best you can be, then you will always eventually succeed.

Using failure to your advantage will lead you down the path to success, one must never forget to never give up.

From Seth Filo and everyone at FBLA Arizona, Thank you for reading