Why You Should be Thankful For Your “Failures” in Life

Look, I’ve “failed” at A LOT of things. I “failed” the Virginia Bar Exam not once, but twice. I “failed” at getting a foothold in securities law like I thought I would. I “failed” at returning to my old self after giving birth to my twin boys and almost dying in the aftermath. There are plenty of other examples but I’ll leave it at that.

Why did I put failure in quotes? Because I’m a big believer in that you will continue to have the same challenges until you learn the lessons that you are supposed to learn. To me, it’s only a failure if you don’t, or refuse, to learn a lesson from your failures or mistakes. It's only then can you move forward. Here are the lessons that I learned from the above “failures.”

Here’s what I learned from the above failures:

• Failing the bar exam: I learned to create detailed a plan that included speaking to experts on the subject., playing to my strengths, and keeping going in the face of adversity. In this case, I took advantage of the opportunity to speak to a Bar Examiner who gave me great advice that resulted in me finally passing the bar exam. I did really well in the multiple-choice portion of the exam so I leaned into doing even better on that portion of the exam so that I have some leeway in the essay section of the exam. Oh yeah, about that essay section. There are 10 essay questions. I read the first question on the first day…. and had no idea what was being asked. None. Zero. I had to put it out of my mind and keep moving forward.

• After law school, I thought I’d work in securities law because I did really well in those classes during law school. That didn’t work out. I applied to loads of jobs but never made it past the initial interviews if I even got that far. Because of that, I was forced to turn my focus to other skills and interests. I ended up working at LexisNexis where I eventually worked on recreating the historical citations for Pennsylvania law. I loved it! It played into my love of intellectual puzzles and history.

• I had a very traumatic post-birth experience. I almost died. That’s not hyperbole. I legit almost died. I was in a coma for about a week. I was put on a ventilator. My family was told all they could do was pray at that point. I have no memory of giving birth or of about a week and a half afterward. I pushed myself to get better to get out of the ICU. I pushed myself to get discharged from the hospital. I pushed myself to take care of the twins before finally realizing that I just couldn’t do it and calling my mom to come to stay with us to help with the boys. The truth was that I wasn’t ok. I just powered through things that I shouldn’t have. I finally had to ask for medical help. Honestly, I’m still struggling with asking for help and giving myself the grace and patience to take all the time I need to get better.

So, how does all this mean to you? The above examples are just examples that happened to me. Some of them are probably more extreme than what you’ve experienced but that’s ok. I want you to do the following:

• Take some time and think about things that have happened in your life that you’ve considered as failures.

• Think about, or preferably write down, the lessons that you learned from those things.

• Then, reframe your thoughts to center them around learning the lessons, instead of the supposed failure. For example, instead of “I’m not earning as much as I should be based on my experience and skills” reframe that as “I’m now confident in my experience and skills. I know my professional worth and next time I will negotiate a salary that reflects that worth.”