How to Get Back Up

It’s okay to fail- and it’s great to learn from it

A lesson that has been handed to me many times since I graduated from high school is that real life involves a lot of failure. You’ll try your hand at things- new jobs, new hobbies, even small things like new food- and some of the time these things just simply don’t pan out the way you’d hoped for. This is a pretty crap feeling- and our first instinct is to focus way too hard on that feeling.

We agonize over what might have been, the alternatives we could have turned to, and other what-ifs. We focus on the methods we used, the choices we made, but oftentimes for the wrong reason- our worries and anxieties may force us into over-analyzation that fails to serve any meaningful purpose in the interest of growth. This negative loop can be very harmful, because all you do is end up beating yourself up while not learning anything, not taking away the meaningful lessons that are so valuable.

Learning to learn from my mistakes (it sounds simple, but it’s not!) was one of the hardest things I had to adjust to in my journey as a marketer, and it has helped me in all the facets of my life, not just school and work. Classes like 381 and IMC are designed around the idea that you should do it wrong first- thus, the SFD (shitty first draft). You give things a swing, and learn from your mistakes you make the first time around. This was a really hard concept for me to grasp- because I have been so used to trying to do things 100% right the first time, conditioned from my prior classes to operate that way. In reality, that is very rarely how the world works, so learning to grow and change after making an error is important.

The perfectionist in each of us can be a difficult thing to wrestle with. Regardless of what we say, we all do struggle with the idea that we could (and probably will) be wrong. It’s just hard to acknowledge, and even harder to use the opportunities of your being wrong to learn and adapt. For me, learning this was tough- I compare it to climbing a ladder. Getting up the first couple of rungs was hard, but it gets better as you gain balance and confidence.

I failed my first bout of college at a private college called Linfield in Oregon. I came home after just one semester, with my head hung in defeat, feeling pretty low. And it took me many years to consciously look back on those times, to acknowledge my mistakes and overcome them- it’s still hard to do. It stresses me the hell out. But it’s important to do so!!! I need to look at those times, to know what to change and what to fix, so that I can better myself over time. This can be very hard, but I promise, if I can do it, so can you.

Not being self-critical isn’t the key- it’s being critical and analytical in a healthy manner, not antagonizing yourself for your shortcomings, but rather treating them as learning opportunities and using those opportunities to become a better person. For a while I personally just let my shortcomings wash over me- and that didn’t work. It’s a bad habit I had to grow out of (and still actively work against), avoiding being self-critical in order to avoid anxiety, which only works in the very short term. I find that if I acknowledge my mistakes, it sucks for a little bit while I think about it, and then is much better for much longer later. I’ll take that trade-off!

So don’t treat your failures like the end of the world. Look at each opportunity to grow as a gift- this makes your professional journey as a marketer that much more flexible, improves the quality of your work over time, but most importantly helps you be the best version of yourself that you can be.