In both high school and college everyone has their own journey, not one path anyone takes is the same. Some people are faced with challenges and fail while others have an easy time at success. The important thing is not about who you are and if you were successful or not. It’s how you respond to it. If you faced failure, did you simply give up or did you pick yourself up and keep going? If you were successful, are you keeping it going and still working hard or are you letting it get to your head? If you are somewhere in between or in a situation and aren’t sure what to do, it’s okay! In today’s post we will be covering how you can be successful, deal and cope with failure and I will also share my personal story of how I both faced failure and turned it around. 

Do Yourself A Favor & Stop Pressuring Yourself!

It seems from the very moment you enter high school as a freshman you are thrown a class book and told to choose what you want to do. There is so much pressure from counselors and teachers that you must choose. Even in college, sometimes there is so much pressure on us to choose a major and we are forced to make a decision quickly.    

Are you in high school or college currently and are in this same situation? Let me give you some advice: It’s perfectly okay to not know what you want to do for a career/major. Don’t let anyone pressure you into anything you don’t want. From personal experience, try different things and experience new things. By doing this, you’ll find what you are interested in and what you dislike. Keep doing this until you have that “ah ha” moment. 

The Lightbulb Moment A.k.a. The Ah Ah Moment:

So what is this so-called “Ah Ah moment” I’m talking about? As you begin your exploration and try new things, sometimes you get this feeling of excitement and you suddenly realize, said activity, career or major is for you! 

Everyone has these moments even if you don’t realize it. For example, I’ll tell you one of my key moments. At the very start of my freshman year in high school, there was such pressure for me to decide what I wanted to do as a career. I was given the class book and saw so many paths and I’ll be honest it was honestly overwhelming. I honestly had zero clue what I wanted to do and wasn’t sure what I was interested in. Originally I was in band ever since elementary school and was pumped to do it in high school. However, the requirements and scheduling conflicted with work and sports. I’ll be honest I was crushed and to be honest kind of lost. Band was a big part of me and I wasn’t sure where I could go from there. So what did I do? Well, like I said above, I opened myself to new things. In the class catalog I saw a class called Engineering & Design. It was this very class that led me down my path towards where I am now, well… sort of. 

I should mention, if you haven’t had your “ah ah” moment yet, don’t worry! Your moment is coming. Don’t try to force it. The more you try to force it, the harder of a time you’ll have in the long run. The best advice I could give you is to keep on going and let your moment come to you. Enjoy where life takes you!

Dealing With Failure & How To Cope:

No matter the situation, dealing with failure can be a severe blow to your morale and motivation. For the purposes of our discussion, let’s focus on failure in a learning environment. You can easily take the principles we discuss and apply them anywhere.

Remember nobody likes to fail or wants to fail. If you are currently facing failure or trying to cope with it, let me reassure you everything is going to be alright! Don’t panic, take a deep breath and just relax. I know it’s easier said than done. Trust me I went through a stretch of failure, I get the feeling and know it’s not easy. (More on this later) If you are in a real bind and don’t know what to do, lean on your friends and family as they can really provide some great insight and reassurance. As I mentioned at the start of the post, it’s not how or why you failed that’s important. It’s how you pick yourself up and bounce back. If you just give up and sulk in your failure, you’ll never get anywhere in life. Failure is a part of life. 

This reminds me of what a very wise and motivational Professor once told me during class one semester. She went on to explain that failure has such a negative meaning and there is such pressure put on us when we fail. Professor told us to remember the word fail means: First Attempt In Learning. Now, I know this sounds absolutely crazy, but she had a valid point. How else are we supposed to learn and grow if we never encounter failure? Not yet convinced? I don’t blame you, I wasn’t either at first but after looking at real examples of people who encountered failure at first then went on to be crazy successful, I was very convinced. Which brings me to my next point…

Look To Your Role Models:

Think about who you look up to whether it’s a family member, cultural icon, etc. I want you to think about this for a second. Do you think whoever it may be, became successful overnight? Do you think they ever not failed? Do you think they ever gave up? Take Walt Disney for example, once faced bankruptcy, mental health issues,  and even labor strikes. 

Walt Disney himself once said “It is good to have a failure while you’re young because it teaches you so much. For one thing it makes you aware that such a thing can happen to anybody, and once you’ve lived through the worst, you’re never quite as vulnerable afterward.”

Walt also explained his formula for overcoming failure. “To some people, I am kind of a Merlin who takes lots of crazy chances, but rarely makes mistakes. I’ve made some bad ones, but fortunately, the successes have come along fast enough to cover up the mistakes. When you go to bat as many times as I do, you’re bound to get a good average. That’s why I keep my projects diversified.”

Being Successful & Seizing Your Opportunities:

Everyone loves hitting big and being successful. But how do you become successful? To be honest there really is no correct answer. There is not one correct path or steps you need to take to be successful. Like I said at the start of the post, everyone’s path and circumstances are different. Everyone’s definition of success is not going to be the same because of this. Remember, success is what you make of it. It can be as small as finally getting straight As or as big as landing that dream job you always wanted. No matter your path or the circumstances, you need to be sure to take advantage of your opportunities as well as the tools you have at your disposal. For example, the company I work for currently, is very big on promoting within and teaching. With this, they offer lots of training and opportunities to learn everything I’m interested in and enthusiastic about. If you currently work for a company or employer who does something similar, be sure to jump on any opportunities and take the resources they offer you.

My Stretch Of Failure & How I Turned It Around

Originally, I began studying engineering and had the dream of working for Disney. I had the hope and dream of one day even starting my own park. So what happened? Well first let me say, I am not very good at math. Ever since elementary school, math was always a weak subject of mine. Despite this, I never failed a single math class in school. I always got As or a low B. Flashforward to college and I failed not just one math class, I failed two math classes! For my degree I needed to take Pre-Calc I & II, Calculus I, II, III & V. Yea it’s not as fun as it sounds, especially when math is your weak subject.

Right when I failed my first class, I was devastated and felt like giving up but then I stopped to remember my dream and what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to give up on my dream without a fight. The following semester, I retook the class I failed and not only did I pass with a B, I know the math a whole lot better. The next semester, I moved on to my next math class which was Pre-Calc I and yes you guessed it, I failed horribly. If I remember correctly, my grade was a 40 something. It was really bad! I didn’t fail out of not trying, there were a lot of factors that went into it, online class due Covid being one of them. (When it comes to math, I am a very visual learner. So math is easier for me in person with an instructor in front of me and where I can actually write things on paper). 

At this point, not only was I stressed and down on morale, I also was doubting myself. I kept asking myself “What’s the point”, “Why am I doing this” and even “This was all a mistake I should have never done this.” Remember how I said before, it’s not how or why you failed that’s important. It’s how you pick yourself up and bounce back that matters. 

I was faced with a very tough choice and it took a lot of thought. Did I no longer want to do engineering? Or Did I want to stick with it? After weeks of thinking and weighing my options, I decided to switch my major to Hospitality for a variety of reasons. First, besides failing math, the math in general was getting to be too much for me and was too stressful. I was only at Pre-Calc 1 and still had to do Pre-Calc 2 as well as Calc 1 – 4. I knew I didn’t want the stress of going through all that. 

Second, I was very good at the science part of engineering as that came easier to me. I was very into 3D printing, CNC machines, robotics, etc. I choose rather than have the stress of doing these as a career and taking the fun away, I wanted to keep these as hobbies or interests instead.   

Third and most importantly, I didn’t want to give up on my dream of eventually opening my own theme park or resort. Hence where the hospitality comes in. I was always interested in hotels and had a fascination for them. When I got my college courses catalog and saw this as an option, I always planned to have this as a double major down the road. 

So did I become successful? Well, Flashforward and here I am closing in on graduating with my Associates degree in Hospitality, working at an amazing hotel company learning lots and doing this blog! So yes, I would say I am successful! Want to know more about my day to day at the hotel? Check out my post What It’s Like Working In A Full Service Hotel.

I hope you all enjoyed today’s post and found it helpful! Until next time!

~Blake