Overcoming Failure
I bombed my first professional presentation. The scene consisted of a packed room at a national conference on family research. Two of my lab mates, a graduate student and a recent undergraduate student, were also presenting. They both rocked their presentations! It was my turn. I fired up my presentation slides, stood at the podium, and began.
A few minutes in, I started to yawn uncontrollably. My thoughts started to race. I tried to power through, but then the nauseousness and dizziness set in. Being an athlete my whole life, I had enough mental toughness to believe that I could overcome this, and I made the best of it for a while, but then I couldn’t. Fearing that I was going to faint, I sat down and finished the presentation. Utterly embarrassed and feeling like I disappointed my mentor, I was quiet the whole drive back. I wasn’t used being so terrible at something.
During my next individual meeting with my mentor, he in his very Dutch way, told me that I had failed and that I needed to work on my presenting skills. After feeling all the emotions as a result of being told that I sucked at something, I got to work!
I racked my brain trying to figure out what went wrong and then remembered a similar incident where I almost fainted—when I was getting fitted for a bridesmaid’s dress. I had been standing still patiently allowing the seamstress to pin my dress. And all of a sudden, I was falling to the floor. If you were ever in choir, you have probably already guessed what was causing my issues—I lock my knees when I stand in the same spot for a long time.
Now understanding the problem, I accepted the hand that I was dealt, and adapted. For my next few presentations, I chose to sit down, but that wasn’t really the level of presenter that I was going for. More adaptation came when I learned that I couldn’t lock my knees if I moved around the whole time I was presenting. Moving around while presenting made me a more dynamic presenter and I started to get praised for my presenting skills. Whenever I got a chance to present, I took it! Whenever someone would give me feedback on my presentations, I listened and implemented. And now, 14 years later, you could say that I’m a pretty good presenter.
Failure is inevitable. I don’t encourage you to try to find someone who has never failed because it would be a waste of time. Everyone fails. Everyone! We fail, but that failure doesn’t define us. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, it simply means that this one time you performed badly. And the explanation for that poor performance could be situational (you weren’t feeling well) or a weakness (you don’t possess that skill, yet). Instead of writing yourself off as a failure, allow that failure to propel you to a new level!
Here are the steps:
1. Accept that you failed.
2. Feel all the emotions.
3. Figure out why you failed.
4. Develop a plan to improve on that specific skill.
5. Execute your plan.
6. Evaluate your progress.