Learning to Fail: 5 Keys to Failing the Right Way

If there’s one thing you must learn in college, it is this: how to fail.

And not just a little bit. I mean fail spectacularly. The kind of failure that wrenches your gut, knocks you out cold, maybe even leaves you a little bloody. (My apologies to Jason Seiden for borrowing his term. Go check out his blog and his book. Be sure to watch the awesome video “Fail Spectacularly.”)

Why fail? Because college is about learning. And failure is one of the best teachers, if you know how to use it.

I know this firsthand, because I am a  failure myself. This was especially true in college. I was a train wreck in progress…the kind that horrifies you but won’t allow you to turn the other way. Because I had a flair for it. I was good at failure. And you know what? I still am.

If you don’t know how to fail, you won’t ever have the experience of picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and starting over again. The consequence: you won’t learn the skills necessary to see the next train wreck coming. And that train wreck…it’ll be you!

This is something I worry over about the current generation of college students. They’ve been given medals all their lives, for even the most minor achievements. Their parents hover over them still, and they communicate several times a day, by phone, e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. It’s absolutely nuts, and totally unhealthy, for both the student and their parents. And, though well-intentioned, parents need to allow their students the failure, and the legitimate learning that comes with it. It’s the difference between protecting and coddling. And it will mean all the difference to a student’s success in college and beyond.

So do yourself a favor: learn to fail. And if you are a parent, learn to let your student fail.

Here are five keys to help students and parents learn to fail the right way.

• First, take some risks.
  • If you are a college student, try something new, on your own, without asking your parents whether you should. If it interests you, you need  to evaluate the pros and cons of the activities yourself. You know that you are going to a) do it anyway or b) resent others for talking you out of it. So “man up,” and take some risks! (As long as you understand them first, and their potential consequences.)
  • If you are a college parent, let your student make their own decisions. After all, your “child” is an adult now. You need to start thinking that way. Instead of telling your student “yes” or “no,” ask them what they’ve done to think an issue through. It’s okay to end the conversation with “It’s your decision, and I know you will make the choice that is best for you.” This approach will likely lead to a couple of surprising outcomes: your student will surprise you and make the choice you hoped for, because their parent’s voices are always with them, anyway; or your student will surprise you and make the decision you worried about, and in most cases things will turn out fine, because your student will learn a valuable life lesson from the success or the failure which follows. If the result is failure, you will have the satisfaction of either being there for your kid, and offering support, or saying “I told you so.” So in most cases, the end result is win-win for you.

• Second, learn to trust. This is a hard one, in that it requires you to trust several different parts of the equation: your student, yourself, and the process. You should trust your student because you raised them the best you could. You should trust yourself, because you know your intentions are good, even if your practices sometimes fall short. And, finally, you should trust the process because most things turn out just fine. If it doesn’t kill you (or your student) it will likely make one (or both) of you stronger.

• Third, learn to forgive and move on. Your student will fail, it’s part of life. You will fail, because you’re human, too. And the process will fail, because its success depends on both of you, on other people, and about a million other variables, from the economy to the weather. It’s just how it is. But the sun will likely rise tomorrow, the wind will still blow, and life will go on.

• Stay in a committed relationship with your failures. Stick with them until you learn something that makes them worthwhile. Pick them apart, look at all the pieces that didn’t fall into place, and see how you could fit things together differently next time.

• Meet each other as equals. Each side has something to teach, and each has something to learn, but to fail successfully, each of you must allow the other to learn from the situation and the interactions that led to it. This means no lecturing. No rescuing. And no excuses! Each side needs to take 100% responsibility for their part in the problem and the solution.

So take a risk or two, and be sure to use every experience as a learning opportunity (even if the situation seems bad on its face.) You’ll come out on the other side stronger and more able to make successful choices in the future!

What are you doing to get comfortable with failure? Are you ready to fail? And what will you learn from it?

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Tagged as: adulthood, college parent, college student, failure, helicopter parent, learning to fail, millennial, transition

About Sean Cook