At the end of this school year one of my leaving 6th year students came to see me to say thank you and to give me a gift. I was very humbled by this. I was proud of the boy and while I would never expect anything from anyone it is always nice when someone shows their appreciation.
I could talk about how well this pupil had done in his D&T career, about the skills and confidence that he developed over the course of the past six years, or about the fact his projects have been recognised with success in UK competitions, but what I was most impressed with was the gift he gave me and what it showed me he had learned.
He gave me a wall plaque that said “There are no such things as mistakes, only lessons”. I thought this was superb and put it above my board straight away so that every pupil would see it all the time they were in the class. This gift showed me that this pupil would be absolutely fine in life, that he understood and that he would not be afraid to ‘have a go’.
Sometimes the fear of failure cripples us and even stops us from doing anything. If we can all heed this advice then perhaps we will have the courage to try things. It doesn’t mean do whatever you want and then use this as an excuse, there must always be an element of control in there somewhere; I referred to the basic model of plan-do-reflect in a previous blog and this is very relevant to this.
Quite often mistakes can end up being the best thing for us and, while we rarely see this as the case at the time, if we stopped to reflect on where we are and how we got here, I’m sure we would uncover mistakes made along the way that inspired us or played key roles in getting us there.
I’m sure we could recount a story we heard about a famous entrepreneur/artist/designer etc who had to overcome many setbacks and even failures en route to success. I can’t think of any who ‘nailed it’ first time. http://beyondbelief2010.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/failures-of-bill-gates-henry-ford-and-other-famous-entrepreneurs/
One of my favourites is the story of Thomas Edison, who, when asked by a reporter about his many failures before coming up with his light bulb, replied: “I have not failed 10,000 times. I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”
Mistakes help to shape us, to form our character and also to reveal it. Can you take the setback and turn it into a positive? If you can, you will be fine. This is not easy though and like anything requires thought and practise.
Napoleon Hill
“Before success comes in any man’s life he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps, some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is to quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.”
H. Stanley Judd
“Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It’s OK to fail. If you’re not failing, you’re not growing.”
You will know some people who will give a hundred reasons why something can’t be done, these people quite often have a massive fear of failure and may find themselves not achieving as much as they could.
Hopefully you will also know some people who will give a hundred reason why something can be done. These are the people who you need to surround yourself with, listen to and trust.
So take my pupil’s advice and don’t let the fear of failure stop you from even trying; have a go, learn the lessons along the way and then enjoy!
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Make Summer School 