Via freepik.com
It is only in looking back that I realize the greatest successes came to me after much striving and failing. I don’t want to diminish the hurt and disappointment – I was hurt and deeply disappointed.
I tried being a great student in public school. I was average. I strove to be a good student at the Royal Conservatory of Music – I didn’t even come close to pleasing my teachers. My mother, who loved me, would get angry at me and call me “nothing.” The first time she saw me singing on TV, she remarked, “All your life you’ve been nothing. From nothing you became a celebrity!” My response was, “I’m nothing? You’re lucky I have a sense of humour.”. Yes, it still hurts decades later, but I took my steely determination and kept going.
If there was a course I could teach to school children, it would be “How to Fail and Still Be A Success.” I would start with writing exercises. I would get rid of spelling and grammar and just let thoughts flow. I would give permission to students to “just do it”. Say something and don’t worry about spelling and grammar. I would encourage students to make up their own language using sounds like “plurrrippastut” and make up their own definitions for their new words.
I would encourage non-athletes to try being athletic, not just for the feeling of failure, but for the emotions that athletes use to win games – determination, courage, sensitivity, strict regimen. Most importantly, I would say, “you tried – through trying you won, even when you fell down and skinned your knees, you won.”
It is not too much to ask people who are trying to accomplish something to have hope. I’ve gotten into discussions with people who tell me that hope and optimism aren’t helpful. I respect that opinion, but speaking from experience, when all I had left besides painful memories and bruised egos, was hope, I was somehow able to keep going. Reach out, make a friend, do things that are hard like smiling at strangers and saying hello. Keep whatever dream you might have alive. It is failure that taught me to succeed. It is failure that is the true master.
Honey Novick