Reflective Essay about Failure

Failure used to make me believe that I am helpless; Failure is an upsetting experience. A single failure experience can create an unconscious fear of failure inside a person. Everybody fails, and there is always a lesson in every failure. Failure will continue hurting you, but if you accept not trying again, that will continue making you a failure for the rest of your life. I used to say, “I can’t do this again” because I felt like I would fail again; I let my fear go deeply into my heart. So, as one can see, failure is something very emotional. Everybody goes through it, but we have to take action and try not to fail at the same thing the next time, even if it could happen, and the effort you make now is your success in the future. So l believe that The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success.

For as long as I can remember, soccer has been a part of my life. I was a soccer player (goalkeeper) in our  Kenyan girl soccer team in 2017. Losing was one of the worse things because I felt l was helpless to the team. I thought I was the one to be blamed because I was a goalkeeper. When the other group scored a goal, l felt like l did not do my best to stop them. I felt guilty, but my team always told me that l should not take failure personally; everybody fails. I was not good at Soccer, but when I thought about blaming myself again if our team fails, I decided to take action and practice for more hours. My experience with this failure was horrible, but l learned that it is better not to threaten yourself because you have failed at something; that does not mean that you will fail at everything. I came to realize that failure is an experience that is unpleasant for everyone.

I remember when l was in 8th grade, we had a competition with another school. The match was about Human Reproductive Systems. An organization (SAVIC) decided to teach students about Reproductive systems after school; l  was among the student group members. So, we had a competition with other schools on what we learned. One day we had a competition with Shambe School; l was so nervous and somehow confident. When the competition began, they asked all the questions, and every group answered all the questions correctly. However, the last question happened to be my turn. l got the question wrong, but the other group got it right, which made my team fail. They all blamed me for getting the last question wrong. l was so mad until l called myself names and thought I was nothing in this world. I decided to stop going to this organization and stay home for a few months, but one day my teacher called me after school and told me that we had won the competition. I asked him, how? He said they looked on the CCTV and found out that one of the other team members googled the last answer because they never were exposed to the right answer like us. So, we were chosen to be the winners because the other team cheated. I was so excited, and that day, l learned that if you don’t know something, you should study it and not cheat.

In conclusion, I would say that failing is a thing that everybody goes through in life, I don’t know if failure is optional or not but l would advise people to not feel bad or threatened themselves. Do not be mad at yourself just because you have failed. What I can advise you to do is be strong, try again and again and again, practice more hours than before and keep encouraging those who fail and want to give up. My experience with this failure was horrible, because each time I failed, I felt so bad at myself, but my family and friends kept encouraging me and I started being more confident and I was ready to fail all challenges and obstacles in my life.