Celebrating Failure 26 A

1. I have failed at plenty of things in my life and have often tried to avoid failure at all costs. This semester I planned to be able to be able to develop some effective small business plans and have an idea that I felt I was ready to invest in and start to grow. However, I do not feel that I have an idea that warrants my investment currently. I have never been a very creative thinker and I think I have become more comfortable with a fixed mindset than I would like. When the first exercise of the semester challenged me to think about things that bother me and then look for solutions, I thought this was a perfect way for me to develop a product or service that I could begin to grow. I had a few ideas for solutions that were interesting but either my ideas for solving them weren’t practical or they simply weren’t that warranted. I started to become discouraged and wondered if I was ever going to be creative enough to effectively solve problems. I eventually found an idea that was interesting to me and stuck with all the assignments in the semester, but I have never really felt that the service is actually a viable candidate for starting a business. Overall, I have really enjoyed the class, but I also started to put a lot of pressure on myself to find a good business to start and that made my failure to find a good business idea more pronounced.

2. One of the biggest things I have learned and begun to understand is that failure is a part of the entrepreneurship process. One of the best ways to learn and develop an idea is through failure. I have spent so much time trying to be the best at what I was good at instead of stretching myself to grow into a rounded person. I learned that essentially, I have been fostering a fixed mindset. By being afraid and frustrated by failure, I allowed myself to get comfortable and believe that I could start a business without failing at all. I now know that is simply not true. Failing and learning from it is a necessary part of life and entrepreneurship. I am thankful that I am learning and applying this to my life and not putting so much pressure on myself every time I fail.

3. I feel that fear of failure has often driven me to avoid trying things that I felt I might fail at. Failure is obviously not a fun experience. However, I feel that I am reshaping my outlook and response to failure so that I can learn from these experiences and push myself to grow more. This class and reading the Mindset book has really helped me reshape my outlook on failure. This is probably my number one take away from the class and I am looking forward to incorporating this more into my journey moving forward. I most certainly feel that I am much more open to failure and taking risks than I would have been before the class.