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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Healthier School Lunches Kids today aren't being served healthy enough meals from schools for lunch Who: Elementary School Kids What: Are not being served healthy meals by their schools Why: School's neglect the importance of healthy foods and resort to cheaper/easier options Hypothesis Testing the who: This problem can expand beyond just elementary school kids. Middle schools, high schools, and even college dining halls can have this issue, as well. It impacts younger students the most, however, because they are the ones who most need the nutritious value, and they are in less control of what foods they eat. Testing the what: There is an argument to be made that this country has issues with unhealthy food. My counter to that is that schools absolutely have the ability to serve healthier options, but they openly choose not to for financial or convenience reasons. Also, again, other people have options in terms of what they eat; kids stuck at school do not have a c
Read more