“You’re not a failure “
My younger sister sobbed uncontrollably earlier today while muttering, "How could I have failed a test, so simple as that?"
I was shocked, she was a bright student who hardly received a five on a test. Because she had us, her older siblings, as a coach, we discussed everything, the challenges we faced and the mistakes we made in high school. She did always say, "Sis, I will be careful not to do this in the future."
She muttered things like, "Today, I'm a failure, and my classmates will make fun of me," "How am I going to deal with them in class on Tomorrow ," and other such things.
It dawned on me that we had always prepared her for success and not failure.
I approached her and questioned, "Are you really a failure?"because of a test or an exams you failed?"
"Perhaps," she remarked.
It makes my heart hurt to watch her in that way, so I grinned and took her hands.
You are not a failure, I softly assured her.
You are not a failure because you only failed at doing something; that's two different thing.
"But I failed,you and sister never did,I have seen all your report in high school" she remarked.
"How about now? I asked
"Have you seen my results from the tertiary level of education? "
She didn't believe me when I said I didn't get an A one semester, so I had to show her my grade for that semester.
She was astonished, and I assured her that it was okay to fail.
I have struggled personally and professionally, and I have failed in certain areas of my life.I let go of some things too.
But the trick is that I always put my struggles and mistakes in perspective, learn from them, and live that way.
See! Many of us gauge our success by what others and our peers think, like my younger sister did.
I told her about Thomas Edison, Van Gogh, who only had one picture sold during his lifetime but now even the tiniest of his works is worth a million dollars, and Einstein, who his schoolteacher in Munchin once described as "an unteachable child" and who was told "he will never amount to anything in life."
But none of them allowed these things to define them; instead, they refused to accept failure and made the decision to have faith in themselves.
I had a heart-to-heart talk with her and used numerous examples of successful people to help her understand why failure is unavoidable in human existence and why she is not a failure.
Each successful individual has also experienced failure.
Whoever needs to hear this, I don't know, but I'll say it anyway: "If you want to succeed, the secret is to not let any single occurrence influence your opinion of yourself.
Instead, take what you learned from it, work harder, and resolve to perform better the next time.
Bye guys see you in my next blog
