Piece of Advice

 It was September 7th 2019. A figure emerged from the corridor rushing towards the convoy of cars, closely accompanied by another man with moist eyes. He said “Sir” and as he took out his spectacles from his teary-eyed face, he received a big hug. This was Prime Minister Narendra Modi consoling K Sivan, the chairman of ISRO. India’s moon mission had failed, or was it really a failure? There were two parts to the mission, the Chandrayaan orbiter orbiting the moon for collecting data and Vikram lander which was to soft-land on the moon’s south polar region, where no country had attempted to land before. To date, the orbiter continues to take pictures of the moon and supply critical  data for the forthcoming missions. 

So why do we attribute such a social stigma to failure? Some of the reasons we already know but refuse to acknowledge.

Firstly, peer pressure – what will society say?

We forget in this scenario the people who are more important to us and lose track of ourselves. We need to understand that we are trying to shield our ego either to gain the approval of others or be acknowledged as a good human being. On the other hand, there is a struggle to protect ourselves from the mental pressure and agony that failure has brought. Consider a student who had been failing in her exams in chartered accountancy, and just to make up for the lost failures, worked at a CA firm, putting in more work time to earn promotions. But this did not help the student to clear the exams. Thus, the goal is forgotten in the guise to gain approval. 

The second problem is the comparison with peers.

The other friend came in the merit list and so how was it that you could not manage? There is no end to comparison. It robs you of your own joy. Consider a person with 7-8 years of work in a company at an executive level who would earn less than a qualified professional. For the organisation, both have their own place. A comparison is not needed here. One is a stable resource who knows the organisation and its ways of working, and the other has his skill. Another reason is the lack of entrepreneurial spirit. Note that the Indian education system was laid down during the British era to make the countrymen employable for government jobs. Today, we ready our kids to take up jobs abroad. Hasn’t the mindset really changed? 

We are now willing to invest in startups and new businesses, due to an increase in management education. New business increases sales, fosters healthy competition, and hence contributes to the demand economy. We should know that life is a series of events and success is only delayed due to factors beyond our control sometimes. Hence, we need to continue a path of learning the lesson from failure.   

Enterprise requires the ability to deal with failure and the spirit to carry on with the plan ahead. Hence, the education system encourages kids to take up hobbies in school. It may be sports, a robot-making class, arts, music, or an experimentation with languages with a choice to learn German, French and the latest trending Spanish. We need to understand that trying these activities is important since it enables the child to understand his skills and abilities better. What use is education if it keeps us from truly knowing ourselves? Not trying a subject due to fear of failure is encouraging complacency at its best. 

So, what can we do to keep going? 

Firstly, cultivate habits to reach your goals because persistence pays.

Habitually waking up early in the morning to study a subject piece of advice, meditating, or doing any physical activity, helps to achieve that long-term goal, be it losing weight or scoring top in an exam. Know that studying for more hours during the exams will not work and may only make one anxious about accomplishing the target.

Secondly, have a few backup plans and options in case you don’t achieve what you wanted.

So if you failed in IIT, it’s fine but you can still try the GRE to study bachelors in engineering or science abroad. Have a choice of colleges and search for scholarships to which you can apply, rather than being stuck with one place. However, do not become complacent since you have a backup in place. Learn to give your best and wait. 

Next, learn your lessons from failure.

Learning means making actionable changes to the study plan, or the way you approach a few questions, techniques to memorise or summarise a chapter in the book. This will help in not repeating the same mistake again. For example – If one is struggling with memorising, drawing a chart/picture of the lesson or rewriting summary points, might help to memorise it better. Next, know that there is no substitute for hard work, and so put in those additional hours to achieve what you want. Be ready to slog and take on the hard tasks at which you are bad at and keep practicing them.