I failed. A story of how you will get past your failure and succeed. (3 min read)
“Failure is success in progress.”
– Albert Einstein
You did the exam, the results came through and you didn’t pass.
Where do you go from here?
Here’s my guide to getting you through this rough time.
Disclaimer: This is based on a true story. :)
Pause and take a deep breath
Bear with me here. There’s more science behind these techniques than you might realise.
Take a step back and let yourself feel the emotion you have been holding back. Let it enter, embrace it and then let it go. As you feel the anger, confusion, sadness, regulate your breathing. Diaphragmatic breathing (in through the nose and out through the mouth) can help to rebalance cortisol levels and ease anxiety. (more on this here).
Remember these 3 sentences:
Failure is a part of life.
A set back is not a disaster.
The FRCA is not a measure of your self worth.
Look back and find the lessons learned
The worst way to deal with failure is to jump back into revision.
Treat your failure the same way you treat a patient with an illness. Before you can anaesthetise your patient, you need to understand their medical history, examine them and carry out some tests. Else the anaesthetic will “fail”.
In the same way, you need to explore the reasons why you failed, in depth.
Take a look at the results sheet.
Where did you excel?
Where did you do badly?
Were there areas where you just scraped by?
How far were you from the overall pass mark?
Do you think there are things that could be improved upon?
Objectively look at how you prepared for the exam.
Did you plan your revision? How? And did you manage to stick to it?
How did you divide your time?
Did you use specific study techniques? Did they help?
What was your work/life balance like?
Were you maximising your revision at work/outside of work?
What was you state of mind? Were you focused during your revision?
Do you think there are things that could be improved upon?
Think about the exam day
How was your mood? Do you think this affected your performance?
What were the on the day logistics. Did you have problems with internet etc?
Do you think there are things that could be improved upon?
The more time you spend analysing this period, the more likely you are to make better informed choices about your future strategy for revision.
Look ahead and make changes
Continuing the metaphor of the patient undergoing anaesthesia, we now have the history, the exam and the investigations. Next, it’s time to piece the puzzle together and figure out what needs to happen for the anaesthetic to succeed.
I like to use coaching strategies to help you make a plan.
Think about the following
GOAL - what is the aim? to pass the exam now? at the next sitting? in 6 months? be specific and make it SMART.
REALITY - how realistic is this goal? is it achievable? If it isn’t then re-evaluate your goal.
OPTIONS/OBSTACLES - what are your options? how can you get to this goal? is there anything that might get in your way?
WILL - how committed are you to getting to your goal? How are you going to hold yourself accountable?
Conclusion
Use failure to your advantage. It shows you precisely what isn’t working - all you need to do is analyse it! The above is my method of managing failure, but it is not the only method out there.
We offer free 1hr mentoring sessions to all, so please do sign up if you need more guidance. I hope that you can use the above as a tool to make sense of your failure and learn from it :).
The following are a few of our previous posts which will help guide you when planning for your new goal.
Finding Focus, Reclaim your time, 4 steps to building a revision habit, 3 scientific revision techniques, make personal changes stick
I leave you with this parting quote.
"You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you."
- Barack Obama
