Failure Can Benefit in the Long Run

The word failure has a negative connotation, but failure is not as derogatory as it may seem, and experts say it can be viewed as a healthy life experience.

“If you’ve never failed then you’ve never tried,” said Douglas Hankes, licensed psychologist and director at Student Counseling Services. “Part of the process of being successful is to fail.”

Students face the pressures of failing every day, whether it is academically, athletically or on the job, but some students cope with failure better than others.

“How a person interprets the failure makes a big difference,” Hankes said.

Students view failure as a positive life experience, while others quiver at the sound of the word.

“I think it is productive to learn how to deal with some failures in life,” said Courtney Henderson, junior in biomedical sciences. “If you’ve never failed then you will not know how it feels, and it also helps you grow as a person.”

Students find it hard to handle failure because of pressures from home or never having failed before.

“I feel like if you haven’t failed before then you are a failure already,” said Ashley Horton, senior in English.

The prime example that most students refer to when explaining coping with failure is the transition from high school to college.

Some college students were used to making good grades in high school, but had to learn how to cope with failing classes in college.

“Most of the students here at Auburn are overachievers in our academic studies, so the thing that we are worried about the most is achieving academically,” Henderson said.

Hankes explained the scare of failure as a cultural thing, and how parents in this day and age are not letting their children experience failure, so more students do not know how to deal with it.

“Parents stepping in and trying to correct the failure is not a helpful thing,” Hankes said. “Some people won’t put themselves in challenging situations, so they can avoid the failure.”

Despite adversity, students find their own way of coping when having to stare failure in the face.

“First, we have to come to terms with failing and accept it,” Henderson said. “Then we have to decipher why we failed and learn from them so we do not make the same mistakes again.”

Failure is a challenge that have to learn how to deal with, Horton said.

“Failing pressures are family, self-set goals and competition, but I think some people feel the most pressure from the smallest, most insignificant of sources,” Horton said. “The best way to deal with failure is to deal with what comes with it and understanding yourself in failure,” Horton said.