Celebrating Failure

A few months ago, I was put in charge of a project in which I and 5 other people were supposed to build a table. I had no real building experience, but I was chosen to lead the project so I figured "why not?" However, I quickly realized that I was in over my head. I had no knowledge of the best types of wood to use, the best tools, the proper techniques to use, or pretty much most of the other aspects required to build a good table. After a few sessions of working on the table, I resigned from my leadership position and gave it to one of the other members who clearly knew more than I did. The lesson I learned from it is to not try to take charge just for the sake of it. I knew going in that I didn't really know anything about building a table, but I ignored that and tried to lead the project anyway, and I failed. I now know that in the future, I won't put myself in a position where I have a fairly good idea going in that I won't be successful.

Failure, in general, is a difficult thing to deal with. Oftentimes I try to hide my failures from others and suppress them, all the while hoping that I don't repeat my mistakes. However, since I began this class, I've tried to embrace failure. I want to face it head-on and keep my failures out the open so I can better learn from them and grow as a person.

Comments

  1. Ainsley StrackbeinNovember 20, 2019 at 10:11 AM

    Hi!
    I enjoyed hearing about your failure of making a table. I liked that you gave up your leadership role to someone else because you knew that they had more experience and therefore would be a better leader. I think that you did the right thing by giving up your leadership role and for most this would have been a hard thing to give up and accept defeat. You hit all the criteria for this post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Herzen VallejoNovember 25, 2019 at 9:06 AM

    Hello Grant,
    After reading your post about your failure, I bet it was a difficult decision to resign from the leadership position and acknowledging failure. I agree with you because failure is really difficult to deal with and after taking this class I also have a different point of view about it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Matthew MrnacajNovember 25, 2019 at 11:28 AM

    Hey Grant! I found your response to be an interesting take on this assignment. Being placed in a leadership position comes with a huge amount of responsibility: and that includes being responsible for failures as well. This is why I am glad to see that you learned from your experience in a leadership position and that you were responsible enough to resign.

    Best,

    Matthew Mrnacaj

    ReplyDelete
  4. Matthew MrnacajNovember 25, 2019 at 11:28 AM

    Hey Grant! I found your response to be an interesting take on this assignment. Being placed in a leadership position comes with a huge amount of responsibility: and that includes being responsible for failures as well. This is why I am glad to see that you learned from your experience in a leadership position and that you were responsible enough to resign.

    Best,

    Matthew Mrnacaj

    ReplyDelete

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