The Gift and Giving of Failure

Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school varsity basketball team. Henry Ford went broke five times before Ford Motor Company. Simone Biles dropped out of the Olympic Games. Vincent van Gogh was never appreciated in his time. All of them failed. They didn’t win when it mattered; they didn’t execute; they didn’t succeed. However, Michal Jordan and Simone Biles are considered the greatest athletes to ever exist. Ford became one the most successful automobile industries, and millions of people each year go to see Van Gogh's “Starry Night.”

Never once has anyone watched Michael Jordan play and said to themselves, “Well he didn’t make a high school basketball team, so he must not be good.” No one has ever watched Simone Biles on the floor and thought, “Well she didn’t compete last olympics, so she probably isn’t that great.” No one has ever looked at Henry Ford as a failure for messing up the first couple of times. No one has ever visited Vincent van Gogh’s work in person and grimaced. That’s because failing in the past hasn't defined them as failures. They are some of the most influential, athletic, talented, driven, and successful people to ever walk the earth. And they did fail. But Michael Jordan wouldn’t have been motivated to train even harder if he made that team. Simone Biles wouldn't have gone back into the gym to fix the problem and improve if she hadn’t dropped out of those Olympic Games. Henry Ford wouldn’t have created the most notable car company in the world if he had given up after the first try. Van Gogh would have never created his beautiful artwork for us to appreciate if he had given up because no one liked his paintings before. These people are not failures for life; they are the GOATs: The Greatest of All Time. Failure is what made them stronger, made them better, and is what made them successful. That's because failure doesn’t define success, it doesn’t define progress, and it doesn't define “good.” Failure is a part of a journey: a journey to victory.

Most people would agree that failure is the very opposite of success. Success is everything someone works towards. It's a sign of hard work, talent, and dedication. Success is the consequence of good work. People want and crave success because, ultimately, success is what gives the most satisfying reward. That’s why they view failure as only a preventative of success. They believe it hinders the reward and conclude it signals a lack of hard work, dedication, and talent. It’s a sign that you weren’t good enough. It’s a sign to give up, go a different route, or don’t go anywhere at all. They believe failure is the enemy of success because it doesn’t give or guarantee power and money. Failure doesn’t give us what we want or believe we need, so failure isn’t success. That’s what many people accept, but what if we could flip the picture? If we think about it, what is failure? What type of success does a person achieve if they haven’t failed first? What if failure wasn’t a sign of weakness, talentlesness, lack of discipline, confidence, or commitment? What if failure was something different? What if failure was a way to greatness? Failure is something everyone experiences because failure is not reserved for the less successful and less talented. It is not reserved for the less fortunate. Failure is a bridge everyone must cross, and the difference between the one who makes it across and the one who doesn’t is hard work, determination, confidence, and humility.

Failure is present in all different aspects of life: sports, spirituality, work, school. Failure is a part of it all. But failure is also a gift. It is a gift because failure can be a sign of progress, hard work, and dedication. Success and progress would be virtually unachievable without failure.

Success and failure go hand in hand, whether you want to accept it or not. Most of the time you will fail before you succeed, and once success is reached, there is an overwhelming sense of accomplishment and pride. This is because your experiences that led you to success now all seem worth it. You had to battle through ups and downs in order to finally reach the top. If we are to stray from failure and observe an easier alternate route, what type of success are we truly revealing? Is it even a success at all? Success can be very subjective, but what type of success is sweet without something to help you realize its taste?

Michael Jordan was born February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina, where he was introduced to basketball by his father. Michael developed a taste for winning, but it wasn’t enough when it came to his high school basketball team. Despite all his hard work and practice, he was placed onto the JV team instead of the Varsity team, but he never let that stop him. He trained even harder and soon became one of the top high school recruits in the country. He signed to play for University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in the summer of 1980 and quickly became team MVP. Michael won the Division 1 National Championship in 1982 and won NCAA College Player of the Year in 1983 and 1984. In his junior year of college, Michael joined the NBA while also finishing his college degree. Michael was drafted third overall to the Chicago Bulls, and here is where it all started. He received the Rookie of the Year Award and was selected for the All Star game his first year in the NBA. Michael went on to break the record of most points scored in a season, having scored three thousand points. Michael ended his career with six NBA titles, and five league MVP awards. Michale Jordan retired as a decorated NBA player, an Olympian, and what many believe is the best basketball player of all time (Piccotti).

Michael Jordan is an example of how hard work, dedication, and discipline are what matters in the end. He didn’t let his past failure define him. Yes, he didn't make Varsity in highschool, but look at who he became. If success can be modeled by our hard work, then who is to say we haven't been successful at all? He didn’t let his failures stop him from becoming who he knew he could be. If it wasn’t for them, he wouldn’t have had the motivation to go and find success by working harder than ever. His story is proof that true sweet success comes with a cost. A cost that oftentimes means sacrifice and so much more, but the great MJ said it himself: “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and miss[ed]. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."

When it comes to defining failure and successes, other people's standards and expectations can get in the way of how we accept and understand either. People constantly feel the need to prove their talent, their hard work, their knowledge, and wisdom to others. There is a lot inside of us that seeks the approval of others in almost all things that we do, and the expectation of perfection is exactly what creates fear of failure. You can say you try to avoid failure for yourself, or to prove to yourself that you're a winner, but the reality is that as humans there will always be a part of you that wants and needs to prove to others. Part of success does come from discipline, hard work, and trust in yourself. Still, more times than not, intentional or not, reaching perfection is an image we try to obtain so that we can keep up with others' expectations of ourselves.

Simone Biles was born March 17, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio, to her biological mother, Shannon. Shannon got caught up in drugs and alcohol, which caused Simone and her siblings to find themselves in and out of foster care. Thankfully, her grandparents came to take Simone and her siblings back to Texas with them. Only Simone and her sister Adria ended up staying with her grandparents while her older two siblings went to be with their actual mother Shanon. Simone found this extremely heartbreaking especially because she considered her brother to be her “rock” (Biles 24). Simone and Adria, though, started living their new life where she found her love for gymnastics and her new found family. Simone made her Olympic debut in 2016 after years and years of hard work. She ended up with five medals, four gold, one bronze, and a love from the American people. She was the new Michael Phelps, the new face of America. But in 2020, Simone pulled out of the games after a scary mishap, and the world seemed to have turned. People called her “weak,” “selfish,” and “lazy.” Simone was no longer the person everyone wanted her to be, and it seemed like everyone hated her. But she didn't let this stop her, and in the next 2024 Olympics, Simone came back stronger and better than ever. She won a total of four medals - three gold and one silver- and sent a message to all the haters: “lack of talent, lazy, Olympic Champions” (Instagram). Simone has eleven Olympic Medals (seven being gold) and thirty world championship medals.

Simone was (and is) one of the greatest athletes of all time, but so many people seemed to blame her for throwing it all away when she pulled out of those Olympic Games. She let the pressure get to her, she focused on what everyone else was going to say, and it threw her off. She believed everyone saw her as a failure because of it. But yet, she wasn’t a failure because in the next Olympic games she went out, competed, and won. She was only showing others that “at the end of the day we're human too, so we have to protect our mind and body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do” (Rene). Simone knew that despite pressure from everyone else, her esteemed “failure” was simply doing what was best for her, and she should know because she has eleven more olympic medals than most people would.

For athletes, their sport is all they have ever known, ever loved, and all they ever will be. Millions of kids and adults dedicate their life to becoming the best athlete there is. There are countless hours spent working and working until you no longer can. Sports define an identity within all different types of athletes; it is what some live for. Athletes, the same as many, see failure as the very opposite of success. As an athlete, being successful and winning a game is of the utmost importance. Failing means not reaching any of those goals. Athletics is more than just a game to these people. It is their life, and to many, their livelihood. If something, anything, takes that away, then it is the enemy. But truly, as we look at examples through other athletes, failure isn't the enemy. Failure is actually a great tool that leads an athlete to be a better one. Professor and performance psychologist Mark H. Anshel writes, “experiencing failure can improve motivation by turning a bad, unpleasant experience into a good, positive one” (Anshel). But if that is the case, why do so many athletes believe it isn’t? The root of fearing failure comes from the anxieties from punishments, others expectations, and the pressures of success. And as we will see, overcoming the fear of failure isn't just beneficial for sports, but for the whole of our lives.

Despite the desire to avoid failure at all costs, when it comes to playing a game that relies on human skill, it is bound to arise. But fear of failure isn’t prominent simply because it’s annoying or unlikeable for a person who values winning; it also is a fear built upon by the outside world. Coaches, parents, and the media all carry a weight of influence. Many athletes are practically trained into the idea that failure is bad. This starts with the use of punishments for failing. There are punishments for not winning a game, missing a shot, not getting there fast enough. There are unfortunately few places where failure can currently co-exist in an environment where success and winning is the number one goal too. But, as addressed, failure is necessary for success. Failure allows for progress; it shows hard work and drive. Athletics addresses failure head on, and it is an area that can model how we should face failure in any other aspects of our life. Understanding this starts with framing how failure is currently used, treated, and discussed in sports.

No one likes running laps when they miss a goal. No one likes having to do twenty push-ups because they missed a layup. No one likes being punished with conditioning when anything goes wrong, but this is what happens. The “punishment” for making a mistake is one aspect that causes athletes to fear failure and hate exercise. Coaches punish failure with exercise often. The reality of why is difficult to understand. Maybe they believe it will make you try harder or make you fail less. Whatever the ideology is, in reality all it’s doing is making kids and young athletes hate exercise and hate mistakes. Knowing this, the idea in itself is ineffective and inappropriate. The idea that you punish an athlete for losing or making a mistake because you believe their effort wasn’t up to par is a dangerous game to play. That’s because maybe the opponent was simply better. Maybe your athlete is sick and can’t perform well. Maybe your athlete is injured and can’t play one hundred percent healthy. You can’t punish someone for physically or mentally being up against a good match, and you can’t expect that punishment will somehow change the outcome. All you can do is encourage them, and let them play the game when or if it’s appropriate (Anshel).

When athletes are conditioned to fear failure, then they ultimately become less motivated and productive. As humans we will fail. We will fail when doing something we have done for years, and we will especially fail when trying something new. Many may see punishment as a good enough reason to not try at all. Athletes will question if it’s worth it at all. Fearing failure's punishment means there is no incentive to try. The National Library of Medicine speaks to this issue in a study done by researchers who found that “fear of failure can adversely impact the athlete’s motivation and unleash a pattern of responses that impede goal attainment” (Moreno-Murcia). This eliminates a whole aspect of athletics as a whole. If sports didn't come with failure, then everyone would do it. Because always being successful is easy, but always falling isn’t. Sports are hard, and that's why athletes need to be in a place where failure is accepted and even encouraged. Practice is a place where athletes should grow, improve, and perfect. By encouraging failure, we aren’t actually telling athletes to outright fail; we are simply telling them to try: to give it their best effort to see what comes from it. There is no logical area in sports where failure should be rejected because there is no sport without failure. There are no pro levels, no Olympics, and no major leagues. Those people are there because they proved they can fight. They proved they can push past a fall, get back up, and go harder. There is never enough talent to carry someone all the way to their goals, but there is and will always be enough hard work, dedication, and courage.

Looking back at Simone Biles’s story, we can see how the pressures of being an athlete are overwhelming. Another reason many athletes fear failure is because of the outside pressure from family, friends, coaches, and even the media. As much as some may want to help, it is also important to understand the boundaries that can make or break an athlete's success. After a loss or a big mistake, athletes may anticipate a coach's or a parent's poor reaction. When a poor reaction is received, it only leads to their own unfavorable reflections on their own performance (Moreno-Murcia). Athletes already have an abundance to worry about in a game or practice. The last thing an athlete needs to worry about is being bombarded with correction and disappointment after a loss. What many parents especially don’t understand is that athletes are already hard on themselves. Oftentimes when something goes awry, they are already analyzing what they have done wrong and how to fix it. They are already disappointed in themselves for not being successful and are already berating down on their own self-worth. There is not anything you could say that an athlete hasn’t said to themselves already. There is a pressure for athletes to be a winner or perfect already placed upon themselves. But even on top of that, there is a pressure to be a winner or perfect for others. Athletes feel like they have let other people down when they fail. Athletes know coaches and others have an expectation that an athlete will win; how will they feel when that expectation hasn’t been met? The role of a parent or coach after a loss needs to be supportive and understanding. The last thing an athlete who has failed needs is someone who is supposed to be the number one supporter telling them that they are not good enough. This pressure and criticism doesn't make an athlete more tough, more disciplined, or more driven. Instead it is often a catalyst that drives an athlete to hate their sport (Anshel).

We can create change for our athletes if our parents, coaches, or anyone else who is reaching into the lives of an athlete can “make more accurate, constructive, and motivational casual attributes” so that the athlete is aware that their “failure” isn't the end of the world (Anshel). And that isn’t just so they don’t feel bad about themselves, but also because it is true: it isn't the end of the world, and coaches and parents need to start looking at reality and realizing that for themselves and the athlete. If the pressure of needing to win is relieved, then maybe our athletes can focus on only getting better for themselves, rather than for everyone else around them. A study posted by The National Library of Medicine found, ”When the coach behavior facilitates autonomy support to the athletes, it is more likely that they have higher levels of perceived competence… and intrinsic motivation and they experience fewer maladaptive outcomes, such as avoidance, frustration, fear of failure, and burnout” (Moreno-Murcia). When an athlete fails, instead of ridicule or disdain, there needs to be encouragement and acceptance. Discussing failure openly is important for a coach-to-athlete relationship and a parent-to-athlete relationship that is productive and successful. Failing and losing will always be part of the game; it’s just a part of life. It may not seem fair, but life isn't fair. Fairness never stopped Michael Jordan, Simone Biles, Henry Ford, and Vincent Van Gough from reaching their dreams, and neither did their failures or what everyone else had to say about them.

Some of the best athletes in the world didn’t get where they are today because they never failed. They are where they are because they have failed. Failure is important because it teaches athletes important skills that can help improve their performance. Athletes must know what to do physically, mentally, and emotionally when something goes wrong in a team situation. Maybe a pass you made didn’t go as planned, and now you must figure out how to still get a goal. In sports where it's athlete versus athletes, human against human, things are bound to go wrong. That's because it’s part of the game. A lot of sports have the goal of trying to mess up the other team. If you aren’t able to accept that, learn from that, and practice that, then you will find success far from possible. Failure doesn’t mean hard work is thrown out the window. It means failure no longer has to be an uncrossable trench; it’s a bridge. It can be a reason to keep working hard; it can be that piece of motivation you're looking for; it can be the lesson you learn. Failure can be whatever you want it to be, but whatever way you lean determines what you can do with it. If we can apply these lessons like integrating failure correctly without punishment, learning to create a good support system, and ignoring others who are unhelpful or discouraging, then all areas of our lives can improve immensely even in the midst of failure.

As an athlete, whether you are a part of a team or not, failure is a tool that can be used to improve yourself as a person inside and out. Leadership in a team, or even a non-team setting, is very important for success. One of many valuable qualities is that failure can create and guide excellent leaders. Overcoming failure is a direct reflection of the type of person an athlete strives to be. “Elite Athletes who are strong supporters of their family, who help teammates achieve at the next level, and who demonstrate behaviours that are consistent with their achievement status reflect value-based success” (Anshel). If you have an athlete who knows how to fail and redirect, then you have an athlete who is prepared to lead others. Team sports never rely on the performance, success, or failure of one person; it’s about everyone. But always having someone who can lead, encourage, and discipline a team into order is what makes a healthy, successful team. If you were to have a leader who only lashes out and gets angry every time there is a mistake, then you would find it quite hard to enjoy playing. You would find your team doesn't feel very encouraged or motivated. Instead your team would feel belittled and discouraged. The leader of a team has a responsibility that is more important than being the best one on the team. Instead, a leader holds the responsibility of guiding the team in the right direction when things are going wrong. “Good leaders don’t give in to failure; they rise above it and use failure as a vehicle for learning, improving, and succeeding” (Anshel). Imagine how successful a team can be in almost anything they do, win or lose, if they have a leader who knows how to rise above and use failure, and imagine how useful this tool could be in all areas of life.

Using failure creates athletes that are well-trained to know what to do when things go wrong. Athletes that don’t lose their confidence. Athletes that can analyze and fix a situation quickly. Athletes that know how to fall and get back up. Coaches that can encourage athletes to work hard no matter what the circumstance or situation. Parents that are capable of being happy for their kids despite the outcome of a game or practice. All capable people who are aware of the power of failure. Failure leads to the most influential and pristine athletes. Athletes that have won and hate losing. But these athletes set themselves apart because they don’t let the loss keep them down. A sports psychologist representative from Peak Sports says, “Mistakes are not an indication that you lack talent as an athlete or that you cannot win the game. The real mistake is when athletes believe that they should be able to avoid mistakes entirely. Whether you like it or not, mistakes are a part of the game and a part of being an athlete” (“Why It’s Okay for Athletes to Fail”). Good athletes may have talent, they may have hard work, they may have money, and they may have influence, but the best of athletes have failure.

My coach used to say, “the best place to fail is at practice.” It was not easy to accept. Honestly for the majority of my life, I hated failing. It wasn’t until I was at a complete loss that the reality of failure hit me. There was no success without failing. If I wasn’t able to fall, get back up, and try again, then there was no excuse to allow myself to be angry when I didn't perform well later on. Because I had given up. I hadn’t given myself the chance to get any better. If it wasn’t for the fact that when I had fallen, I got back up, I would have never learned and never had been where I am today. I wouldn’t know what to do differently and how to be successful. I realized that failure was important because one of the times I would get back up and try again, I would succeed. If I was afraid of failing, then I would have never understood my potential. Perfection is and was always the goal in gymnastics, but succeeding in doing so does not and did not hinder the importance of failing. Failing is how I learned, in and now outside of the gym. Failing is not as scary as it seemed, because now I know that failure is only a stepping stone across the river to get to the other side. The other side where success stands.

I’ve had many specific experiences that have made me realize the importance of failure. One that will stick with me forever, is the first time I ever flipped a vault. I remember my coach granted me the opportunity to go over to the “big vault” and flip into a mat. I was excited and also nervous, so I asked my coach if he would spot me. Usually I ask for a spot in order to help me gain my confidence, or maybe help me ensure that I will perform the skill, knowing someone is there to save me if something were to go wrong. This time was different though because my coach responded with “no.” I remember standing there thinking, “what do I do now?” I was relying on the fact that he would say yes, but when he didn’t I was shocked. He then said, “If you don’t feel good enough to do it on your own, then you aren’t ready to do it at all.” My thoughts raced, “What if I fall? What if I don’t make it all the way around? What if something goes wrong?” But I decided to do it anyway. And when it was over, I was both surprised that I hadn't died, and was proud that I had the confidence to do it at all. I learned two valuable lessons that day; one, a coach will never ask me to do something they didn’t believe I was capable of, and two, something being scary doesn’t mean I'm not ready for it, or that it even guarantees failure; it just means that it’s new. It was scary, yes, but it was also a chance to prove to myself that being scared didn't mean I was less capable of being successful. There was a chance of failure but that didn’t stop me from making progress towards a new skill.

My athletic journey has made me realize that the positive implications of failure stretch past just sports, but apply to all areas of life. I fail at every aspect of every event in gymnastics every day. I have never once had a perfect practice or routine. Yet I still go to practice, I still compete, and sometimes I even win. Because those failures do not define the successes I have achieved. If I had to speak about one of the biggest lessons I have ever learned in life, especially in gymnastics, it would be accepting failure. Sports is one of the biggest drivers of our culture, and failure is one of the world's greatest fears. Both can shape how we view the rest of the world. Sports can make people happy or frustrated. It can drive people's dreams and goals. Failure can make people afraid and motivated but can often cause people to hold back. By applying failures ideology to sports, we can also see how it can affect all other areas of our lives. It means accepting failure, learning how to use it, having a good support system, and knowing that failure isn’t the end-all-be-all.

Each year, on January 1, people set new goals ahead of a new year, and there is often a pressure to stay consistent despite changes in your life, story, and circumstances. There is a pressure to be successful, to change yourself completely, become a whole new person, “do a one-eighty.” Everyone hops on the trend, but no one seems to talk about what happens when you don’t stick to your “new year, new me” goals. There is usually something everyone fails at. You didn’t go to the gym enough, you stopped waking up early, and you weren’t able to eat healthy all the time. These are all perceived failures because people have the expectation that everything will go perfectly, but that is not reality. Goals are for growth, not perfection.

Perfection is never attainable in the real world, so it is quite baffling that people expect perfect success with their goals, especially when it is something completely new. If you are trying to go to the gym for the first time ever, you should have the expectation that it won’t be perfect. Expecting failure is one of the greatest gifts you can ever receive. All because now you have no excuse to stop or give up. When you go to the gym for the first time, you're not going to know how to use every machine, and everything will be very hard. But with difficulty will come great strength. Part of goal-setting is knowing how to set a goal that is actually attainable but still leaving room for failure. It is failure that will allow growth in your journey. On hard days, when nothing is going your way and you still commit to your goals, those are the days where you see the most progress. Mistakes will always come and go, and it is important that when you set a goal for yourself, you accept failure as part of the journey because it is and always will be how you take it that sets you apart from your peers.

Setting and reaching new goals is only a part of our culture that seeks to better humanity as a whole. However, despite the influx of goal reaching, there is not much about what to do when failure arises. Knowing that failure is very likely (if not guaranteed) in life, it’s important to apply the knowledge of failure to every level of our lives. There is failure in sports, yes, but there is also failure all around us all day, everyday. We have to face failure at work, and we have to face failure in school. Reaching into these areas of life, we must also learn how to address, accept, and use failure, so that in all areas of our life we can improve, progress, and gain confidence.

With the American dream of success comes the hard work of building yourself a life and future. This foundation is built through passion poured out into a workforce. It may be a doctor, construction worker, pastor, or teacher. But these spaces are where people come into a professional space to learn, grow, and share their knowledge. Whether it comes to a prestige practice or a grocery store checkout, in these areas, failure is very prominent, along with the fear of failure. Workspaces can be stressful environments. Your actions or experiences can prompt you to question if your performance is good enough to get a raise, if your mistake means being fired, and if having to confront someone means the bullets are shot back at you. There is pressure to succeed as a human on earth, and that comes with the pressure to do well in your own work space. But despite these pressures, failure is still just as important here as it is in practice, school, or anywhere else.

Failing is key to understanding how a business team can grow, improve, learn, and be successful together. Tim Harford, a well known English journalist says, “We will have to make an uncomfortable number of mistakes, and learn from them, rather than cover them up, or deny they happened, even to ourselves. This is not the way we are used to getting things done” (Harford 20). It is not our nature to accept and learn from failure, but failure in reality is beneficial if we are to use it as the great tool it can be. There will always be pressure in a workplace to impress your superiors and even those around and in your life generally. Oftentimes many believe there is an image they must preserve in order to prove, or even flaunt, to others. But sometimes, seizing an opportunity to be successful and possibly fail means doing it in spite of all those things. Trying to be perfect and successful comes with a big cost-avoiding risk. But risk is sometimes the best choice you can make, even when in a workplace environment. By taking a risk you have “learned more about your opponents strengths or skills; you learned more about your limitations and what to work on” (Anshel). Failure in a workplace is an opportunity for those to adapt into finding a solution, bringing the team as a whole together to learn and improve.

Next to work environments comes the education environments. Before anyone can supposedly get anywhere in life, they must first educate themselves. There is science, literature, and math. These subjects are helpful and important to have a basic knowledge of and maybe even a further one in college. School should be a place of experience and discovery, but oftentimes those values are capped off at the baseline. Why? Because failure often isn’t an option. Schools have a system purely based on passing or failing. You either pass the final and graduate, or you don’t, there is seldom any in between. The environment of an education facility now is often less about discovery and more about making it through. There is often no incentive to truly learn because truly learning, discovering, and experimenting won’t get you an A. It will only give you an experience, which in todays’ world, is not enough..

The underlying problem within our schools that leads to fearing failure and its benefits is the confusion within what truly brings a student value in education and feedback. There are too many instances where students are given a grade without a true explanation of what they can do in order to receive a better one. Lory Hugh, a writer for the Harvard Graduate School of Educations, highlights Denise Pope, a Harvard lecturer, in her writing called “The Problem With Grading,” saying, “‘Grading is an evaluation, putting value on something…assessment is feedback so that students can learn…grading doesn’t always do that, but assessment should” (Hugh). It is important that students are given something that they can bounce off of. Students' letter grades are not valuable to them as a person because they don't determine how they learned but really only how they memorized. Students should be learning how fields will work in the real world. They should be learning how math can apply to real-life situations. They should be experimenting how and what they would like to be doing in the future. A letter grade and test doesn’t open the gates but only opens enough for a mouse to crawl through. It is important that we learn from failure or disappointment, so that we can improve. The whole point of failure's goodness is that it allows space for recovery and progress. Seeing a big “F” is a big stop sign. It sends the message that they don't know enough, don’t get it, aren’t smart enough. Failing is not meant to be the end all be all, but in our education that is exactly what it is.

This problem with grades is that they produce a fear of failure in education spaces. With students focused on getting a grade to pass a class, there is no incentive to truly discover and experiment. The thing about school is it is supposed to be a space where kids are shaped into adults who then are to go out into the world and do good. There is a pressure to be successful, know what you want to do with your life, and do it all well once you step out into the real world. But how does one do all of those things when they haven't learned one of life's most important lessons - how to fail? In a space that harps on transformation, there is no space for children to learn how to fail and succeed. Part of becoming a well-rounded person, a successful person, a wise person, and a confident person is learning how to fail. And it’s especially important to learn how to fail in professional spaces, and that starts in school. Part of learning how to be successful in the “outside world” is learning how to be successful in school, and school is a place that should be teaching us how to be successful in the best way possible. The real world isn’t perfect, and you're not going to be getting grades. In life there will be failure, and what you will get is feedback and criticism. In school the standard is that children are learning and preparing for real life. If kids are not able to practice the basics of trial, error, and failure, then there will be a gap in the maturity it takes to be successful later on.

As humans we tend to look at failure as this horrible thing, and that makes sense because everyone and everything makes us believe that. Failure is often hard and disappointing and can bring shame, embarrassment, and a sense of fragility. We are scared to fail because we want to please others, and maybe even we don’t want to let God down. So instead we try our best to be perfect, but that will never work. In Genesis 11:4, the people of Babel try to build a tower up to heaven in order to be perfect with God there, but instead they are punished for their attempt to glorify themselves and are instead confused as God causes them to start speaking different languages. This is what happens when we try to be perfect, but there is hope. There is hope because we all fall short. There is hope because we are human and will always fail and because God is perfect and never fails. Not only that but God has covered our sins with His own sacrifice.

As humans we are allowed to have goals and dreams, and we are encouraged to do so by the Bible. As humans we are also destined to fail at reaching goals and when trying new things, or even old things. But “just because you fail at something doesn’t mean you are a failure, it means you are human” (Kerrah). We do not need to feel ashamed when we fail because it is part of humanity. And everyone has failed. No one is special when they have failed because the only person who hasn’t is Jesus. We don't need to feel shame or embarrassment because Jesus has covered our failures on the cross. He has given us a second chance and more hope than we could wish for. Having goals and failing at them will always and forever be the reality of the world, but our dwelling on such doesn't need to be because God has given us the ultimate relief: Jesus.

God’s own words, the Bible, holds great wisdom, encouragement, and hope. When it comes to failure, the Bible contains words to direct Christians on how to think about their own failure, and it begins with reminding us that we are all failures. In Romans 3:23, Paul writes, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (English Standard Version). Paul's reminder is not directed to lead us towards discouragement, but rather it is a reminder of the power and greatness of God. We, thankfully, do not need to be perfect because God already is, and we also do not need to strive towards perfection; we will always fall short to be so. This is a reminder of our humanity. We are not God, and we never will be. Instead we are sinful imperfect human beings who should be encouraged that God is perfect and knows all. Jesus has experienced manhood, the sinfulness of the world, and temptation. So the Lord is perfect as God and relatable as Jesus. We as humans who have failed can look to the Bible to remind us of all of those things.

In 1 Corithians, Paul talks about human fault/failure in resemblance to a thorn.

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (Crossway ESV).

Paul speaks this way because of his own “thorn” - his blindness. He describes how he pleads with the Lord to take away his pain and his sufferings, but the Lord changes his heart, reminding him that all he needs is God's grace. Because of this Paul then, “boast[s] all the more gladly” about his pain and delivers it up to the Lord because the Lord will overcome it all. Paul's thorn is representative of all of human failure and failure itself. Failure by humans can still have purposes for God’s good.

John Piper mentions how God is always in control and that “Christ’s aim… is not that we overcome all our weaknesses and never fail. His aim is that we trust Him for His grace in our weaknesses…” (Piper). God doesn’t wish for us to fail, but it is our reality, and so therefore we must look to God to use those weaknesses and failures. We can pray and ask God to not only leave us content with him, but actually ask God to advance our weaknesses because we would never have been able to overcome them by ourselves (Piper). There are no limits for God, and the troubles of humans are not one of them.

In parting Words, Pastor John Piper says this, “When it comes to failure, the Bible has two words [of advice]. Number one: the gospel covers the sins mixed in with all our failures. And number two: if we trust him, his sovereign grace will be sufficient and He will even turn the failures into gospel successes.” In a sinful world, failure is not to be feared but rather accepted and given up to the Lord because He has already done something good with it. The Lord sees our failure, and He only hopes that they led us to leaning on Him. Failure is a result of the fall, but it is not the defining factor of our lives, Jesus is.

If there is anything we can learn from failure in all aspects of our lives, it is that it is a tool. It is a tool to grow, to learn, and to improve. It is something that we as a humanity need to look at with a sense of childlike curiosity instead of ridicule. We should look at it and ask questions. “What can I learn from this? Why is this happening? What can I change? What can I surrender?” As a Christian, you can say despite failure, the Lord still loves. As an Athlete, you can say failure is what makes you successful. As a human, you can say that failure is not as scary as it needs to be. Failure is our reality as human beings. It is natural, it's often hard, it’s confusing, and it’s scary. But failure is also so much more. It's an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to grow, and an opportunity for success. There is anxiety that will always have us worrying, expectations we will always feel need to be met, but to seize an opportunity of failure? It is a gift we don’t always get.

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