Each week I have a different challenge or thought to think about. This week my challenge has been to think about what is good about taking risks and embracing failure. The timing couldn't have been better. On Saturday I interviewed for one of my dream positions. I've wanted this position for years and it finally opened up. I applied, worked with my campus career center, got recommendations (one from the President of my university mind you) and gave the interview my best shot. In the end, the position was offered to someone else. I was absolutely crushed. In my life, I haven't taken risks very often. I've just stuck to what I knew. The biggest risk I've ever taken was running for an FCCLA state office in high school. I've never tried so hard for something to not work/ fail before like this and I've learned some things. Success doesn't always depend on how hard you work. Sometimes it's out of your hands. You just have to accept that. Someone once told me that failure isn't fatal and that's so incredibly true. For some reason I've always been afraid of failure to the extent that I thought that if I failed I would disappoint those around me and everything I worked for would be down the drain. This experience has been one of the most humbling of my life. You don't really know how many people you have rooting for you until you fail and they come to support you.
I don't like taking risks because of my fear of failure. But it's almost like not living because you're scared of death. That's dumb. You don't really live unless you fail. So many successful people attribute their success to failures and this experience has shown me that even if I fail, I have a huge support group to catch me and pull me back up. Recently I've been working on taking risks, but I haven't done any that would even have room for a failure. I need to do that. I'm going to start taking risks in every way I can. I've always excelled in everything that I've done and failure has never been in my vocabulary. Now that I see that failure is a part of life and a part of growing, I see that you don't truly live until you experience it. As much as I think that they made the wrong decision in not hiring me, I understand that I just wasn't the right candidate that they were looking for. Something better will come along and I will move on. I need to stop focusing on my high school glory days and put that enthusiasm and energy into my positions on campus.
In the end, I've learned a lot in the last 24 hours. I went from an emotional wreck to being accepting of it. I didn't realize how easy it would be to move on, but I'm excited to see where I end up next.
