Learning From Failure With A Failure Resume

Happy Today!

Learning from what is perceived as failure is a sign of growth. But it takes action and it’s not an activity that is inherent – it’s learned.

Failure isn’t celebrated in school. In fact we are taught the consequences of failure as being retained, forced to attend summer school and ridiculed by peers.

When we leave school, failure shows up in situations such as being passed over for a job, lay-off, divorce, bankruptcy and similar circumstances. While each of those scenarios are heartbreaking on their own, in those times in which they combine and occur at the same time they can be overwhelming.

So with that thought in mind, I searched for quotes about failure to add to my personal cheerleader and I stumbled across this one from the site purewow.com

“I require my students to write a failure résumé. That is, to craft a résumé that summarizes all their biggest screw ups—personal, professional, and academic. For every failure, each student must describe what he or she learned from that experience. Just imagine the looks of surprise this assignment inspires in students who are so used to showcasing their successes… Failures increase the chance that you won’t make the same mistake again. Failures are also a sign that you have taken on challenges that expand your skills. In fact, many successful people believe that if you aren’t failing sometimes then you aren’t taking enough risks. Additionally, it is pretty clear that the ratio of our successes and failure[s] is pretty constant. So, if you want more successes, you are going to have to tolerate more failure along the way.” – Dr. Tina Seelig, professor and author

This was a genius idea and one that I am going to recommend as part of a personal growth plan. When I write mine, I plan to do this in the form of journal entries as I don’t want to make the activity hard to do.

It’s my belief that this type of activity can help release some of the feelings we have that could be tied to past failure because journaling allows the participant a chance to brain dump the everything associated with each failure. Since I have not done this before, I can’t say for sure what will happen.

But I can say for sure that I am sure to learn something even if that something is that this exercise didn’t work for me.

Til next time,

“Successful people don’t fear failure but understand that it’s necessary to learn and grow from.” — Robert Kiyosaki