There was a moment a few weeks ago that I failed miserably. One cold afternoon, I was riding home from work on my scooter when I realized my kickstand fell off while I was mid-ride. The kickstand acts as a kill switch so my scooter was unable to start after I turned it off. My plan was to leave my scooter in the parking lot overnight and to walk my scooter to the repair shop in the morning. However, when I went to go retrieve my scooter, it had been towed. This caused me to become very frustrated as it made it harder for me to get to and from work without my scooter. Also, I knew the repair might be expensive, and I was in no place financially to spend many hundreds of dollars on my scooter. I ended up having to catch a bus to the towing company, paying for it to be given back, and then walking it 3.5 miles to the repair shop.
I learned from this experience, believe it or not. One thing I learned is to always remain calm and never become frustrated. Getting angry and upset only made the situation worse for me at the time. Also, I learned to always keep an emergency fund for vehicles. There is too many things that can go wrong with a scooter and having a solid fund for any repairs will help to alleviate stress during those times.
When I fail, I try to handle the situation as rationally as possible and with as much positivity as possible. Looking at each failure as an opportunity to learn and grow helps to internally fight of the embarrassment of failing. Owning up to your failures and using it as an opportunity to learn makes us feel better about failing. With this relatively new outlook on failure, I would be willing to take more risks going forward. There's nothing to be afraid of when the only two options are success and growth.
I agree with what you learned from this failure. I too learn that but at a very young age. I understand that everyone gets mad when something happens but we need to also understand that nothing will get done if we stay mad. Getting mad only makes things worse for the situation you are in. I hope you were able to fix your scooter! Hopefully next time you'll be better prepared. You learn from your mistakes like everyone else so don't feel bad about yourself.
ReplyDeleteHi Michael,
ReplyDeleteIt really sucks what happened, failure is something really weird. It is really frustrating, stressing and even harsh because it can put us in a really uncomfortable situation. However, I think we can use this experiences for learning and not fall in the same mistakes again. We just have to take the fall, go up again and keep going.