Dealing with failure at university can be overwhelming for many reasons. Regardless of the failure you’re dealing with, it’s important to think about what you can take away from it and how to get back on track.
Strategies to work through failure productively:
Step 1: Separate yourself from the failure
Dealing with failure in university can be overwhelming for many reasons. Regardless of the failure you’re dealing with, it’s important to think about what you can take away from it and how to get back on track. Here are some strategies you can try to work through failure productively:
Step 2: Talk to someone you trust
Experiencing a failure can feel isolating and personal. Speak to someone you trust like a close friend, family member, or an academic advisor to decompress from feeling overwhelmed.
Step 3: Breakdown the failure
Make a commitment to learn from failures. Thinking about how and why the failure happened, circumstances within or outside of your control, and potential consequences give you information about your personal learning strategies, habits, and relevant solutions—this is how to use failure productively!
Step 4: Know you are worthy of support
Everyone needs help at different times in their university experience. There’s a whole network of people that includes your professors, TAs, and academic advisors ready to help without judgement. Go ahead, reach out!
Step 5: Plan your comeback
Treat failure as strategic planning: connect with professors, advisors, and academic support staff to understand university policies, switch programs, and explore new learning strategies to inform your next steps. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you don’t have options. Instead, explore, collaborate, reflect, and rebuild with purpose.
Step 6: Expect to fail again
Failure can happen multiple times and in ways you may not expect—this is all part of the learning process. When you treat failure as a step in the learning cycle rather than a final outcome, you build the resilience and insight needed to succeed.
Take the next step to overcome failure
Failing is a tough experience, but it’s also a common part of learning. If your experience of failure feels more complicated than these strategies, but you aren’t ready to speak to someone yet, try the Failure 101 micro-course available through self-registration on LEARN.