✨ 5-second summary

• Failure can feel terrible and final, but in most cases, it's not the end of something but rather the chance to try again.
• Many famous, successful, and innovative people tried - and failed - multiple times before succeeding.
• You can learn a lot from failure - about your process, about other people, and about yourself.
• If you've never failed, you've probably never stepped outside your comfort zone - and that's where great things happen.

One four-letter “f” word strikes fear in the hearts of most students. No, we’re not talking about that “f” word, but about another that has the potential to derail your academic path and impede your career goals. That word, of course, is FAIL.

But is failure really such a bad thing? While failure is rarely the intended route, the occasional misstep or full-on stumble can have the potential to produce some surprising benefits.

Many of the biggest successes started from rejection and failure. Michael Jordan was initially cut from his high school varsity basketball team. Vincent Van Gogh sold exactly one painting during his lifetime. Walt Disney was told he lacked imagination. Albert Einstein was expelled from his first school. And Stephen Spielberg was rejected from film school multiple times. All of these greats could have walked away from failure, defeated and dejected, and their names would have been lost to history. Instead, they tried again and found success through perseverance, creativity, determination, and strength of will.

Still having trouble figuring out what good can come from failure? Let’s count down five of our favorites.

1. Failure is useful

Cars, cell phones, and textbooks are useful things, but failure? Absolutely. In life, you will at times be unsuccessful. It’s unavoidable. But learning to leverage these failures into wisdom for next time is the very definition of usefulness.

This approach only works if you’re willing and able to look at the experience through a different lens. Instead of evaluating performance purely in terms of the end product, focus on what worked, what didn't, and how you can improve in the next iteration. This isn’t easy. Failing is not fun, and it can feel easier to give up. But adopting a growth mindset as opposed to a fixed mindset can yield priceless payoffs.

2. Failure teaches you to work harder...and smarter

Sometimes you try your best and fail, but sometimes failure is the result of something else: not trying hard enough. At its best, failure is an indication that you need to step up your game. If you did give it 100 percent and failed, all is not lost. One failure isn’t enough to completely ruin your future, and taking quick, efficient corrective action can quickly get you back on track.

The first step is to admit that you didn't try everything and identify what you could have done better. Assess whether your efforts are as effective as they need to be. Are you making the most use of your study time? Taking advantage of all of the resources available to you? Asking for help when you are struggling? While you may not be able to work harder, you may be able to work differently, and that could be the difference between success and failure.

3. Failure teaches the art of humility

Imagine sailing through life without ever encountering choppy waters. Do you think you’d be a particularly understanding, empathetic, or even interesting person? Learning from failure isn’t just a matter of academic progression, but also of personal growth and development.

A lot of students come to higher education from a position of privilege and early success. Maybe you were valedictorian of your high school class. Perhaps you earned an academic scholarship or were advised to pursue a subject because you showed promise in the field. If you breezed through earlier classwork or aced tests without much effort, it can be easy to imagine that success continuing forever. And that can make a person feel superior or lack self-awareness.

In realizing that failure can and does happen to anyone, including you, you can become a more modest and understanding person. You'll be able to see the struggles of others, not as moral or mental failings, but as a normal, natural part of the learning process. These traits will serve you well throughout your life, both personally and professionally.

4. Failure nurtures flexibility

You may be familiar with the expression, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Indeed, the most important part of failure is picking yourself back up and giving it another go. The second most important part? Looking at why you failed. This difficult process can reveal invaluable insights into where you’ve been and where you’re headed.

In some cases, looking back may mean discovering a different, more creative approach to take for next time. In other cases, reflecting on your failure may mean adjusting not your process, but your goal.

Flexibility and the ability to pivot are some of life’s most underrated and yet vitally important personality traits. As another saying goes, 'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'

A great example of flexible thinking is the expedition to the South Pole. The British team attempting the journey tried to use ponies, a standard pack animal of the time, to pull supplies. But ponies couldn't handle the rough terrain or the cold. Roald Amundsen, the leader of the Norwegian team, recognized that sled dogs were more suitable in the harsh Antarctic environment. His use of sled dogs is usually seen as a key factor in the Norwegian team's success in reaching the South Pole first.

The takeaway: If something is not working, there's probably another way to approach the problem, and the occasional failure offers one of the most direct paths to innovation.

5. Failure takes you outside your comfort zone

As humans, we like to feel secure. However, if we all lived safely within our comfort zones and never ventured beyond these boundaries, the world would be a much less innovative place.

While putting yourself out there and risking failure takes strength and resolve, the potential for discovery is huge. Not to mention that venturing into dangerous territory helps clear the path for next time. The team at NASA didn't land people on the moon on the first try. And early attempts at space travel (and later ones as well) were not only dangerous, but tragic and deadly. Still, the Apollo program led to great innovations - both for space travel and for life on Earth.

All in all, there are only small gains to be had in sticking with what you know compared to the limitless potential found when you remove fear from the equation. As Winston Churchill once said, 'Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.'

Conclusion

One last thing to keep in mind? While you can rebound from most failures, some can’t be reversed or corrected. And that, too, is part of life. Consider Washington Post writer Eve Fairbanks’ thoughtful take on failing: “I think failure has a special beauty to it,” she writes. “Like a piece of furniture that falls apart, a mistake reveals more of its construction - of the efforts and motivations of the mistake-maker - than a success does.”

In other words, is it better to spend your life tripped up in fears of failure, or to commit to living life to the fullest regardless of these externally imposed constraints? Well, Franklin D. Roosevelt famously said that 'the only thing to fear is fear itself,' and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, is credited with the saying 'Do one thing every day that scares you.' So, perhaps, today is the day to do the thing that you fear you will fail.