Failed a semester, 7 ways to overcome failure

Failed a semester or a test in college can be tough for you, but it is important to bounce back from it and rectify your mistakes.Here are some ways to overcome failure. You may find it difficult to subside your emotions due to your parent’s expectations or college friends and peers, achieving better grades. You need to give yourself some time to heal from this failure before taking these steps.

Here are  7 ways to overcome failure

1.Acknowledge your mistakes

It is important to accept whether this failure happened due to you skipping classes in college or not paying attention to deadlines. Or was this beyond your control, like being sick or a family emergency, which caused you to be absent most of the semester? If this occurred due to your own wrongdoing, admit you are wrong. As failure to do this, you will hinder your ability to learn new skills in college, correct past mistakes, and decrease your chances of success. 

2. Be honest with your parents.

Although this may be the hardest part to do as you do not want to disappoint your parents with the bad news, even though your parents might not take it well in the starting days. It is important to come clean as they will eventually lend emotional support to you and even help you derive a career progression plan. Furthermore, your parents must be made aware of you failing a semester, if they are supporting you financially in college. So that they can make arrangements for your re-sit and retake fee in advance, telling them the truth will establish a relationship of trust between you and your parents.

3. Stay in touch with your friends.

The best option for most of us when feeling down is to go into hibernation and socially isolate ourselves. However, this may be more suited to Bears than humans, as, over time, this can lead to health problems. Let’s face it being connected to others socially is a fundamental human need for good health and survival.

Once you start speaking about your failures to your college friends and peers, you will realize there are other people on the same boat as you, so you will not feel alone. It is important to speak to your friends and ask them for feedback regarding where you went wrong and whether they can lend notes or teach you a difficult concept. Maybe their help and guidance can pave the way for you to succeed in the future.

4. Speaking with your university counselor

While going through a difficult period like this, your mental health should be your top priority. If you feel there is a sense of judgment from your friends or family, you should consider speaking to your university counselor. Not only do they have experience in managing stress-related situations like these, but they also have a strict code of confidentiality. Seeing a counselor will enhance your mental health and wellness and help you layout and achieve your academic and career goals.

5. Developing an action plan

So now that you’re clear about your mistakes and failures have confided to your college friends regarding them, it’s time to strategize. Once your semester starts, you should schedule meetings with top performers in your subject area to ensure weekly progress is accomplished. Start studying early instead of anticipating the deadline and analyze the syllabus and the duration required to cover it. Another good idea is to meet up with your academic advisor and develop an action plan in line with your course requirements.

6. Failure Success Stories

Oprah Winfrey

Some prominent people who have encountered a major setback in their career include Oprah Winfrey. Before Oprah become the queen of daytime television, she faced her fair share of racism, and things were not always easy for the powerhouse. Coming from a poverty-stricken family and suffering from abuse at the age of 9. Oprah had a traumatizing childhood, but she managed to turn things around through her resilience and grit.

After she graduated from college majoring in communications, she was hired as a primetime news co-host. Since there were not many female colored hosts at that time, the channel publicized this move to gain a wider audience. However, when the show could not gain enough ratings, she was blamed entirely and not her co-host. 

She realized she was too caring for the kind of tough mindset required for this kind of medium. She concluded that she preferred human interest stories to hard news. Eventually, she took another gig, and although the show was not doing well before, she managed to keep it running successfully for the next five years. After that, she started her own show in Chicago and became a household name for daytime television.

Her story shows that by valuing your dreams and ambitions over money, fame will eventually lead to success in the long run. By standing out from the crowd and engaging in controversial issues instead of typical women’s issues, her popularity grew tremendously.

Bill Gates 

Bill gates was not always the successful billionaire we know today, not only a college dropout but also an failed entrepreneur . He dropped out of law school after realizing he was not passionate about the wishes of his parents. Soon he went on to build a failed company called Traf-O-Data. While the product was a failure, Bill and Paul used this as a learning opportunity and created the most successful software company in the world that is Microsoft.

According to Bill Gates, success is an inferior teacher, as failure has helped him emerge as a stronger and wiser person. Hence, these success stories show that failure should not always be negative, but what you make out of it is what really matters.

7. Don’t give up

As the famous quote from the movie Finding Nemo goes, “When life gets you down do you wanna know what you’ve gotta do? Just keep swimming” .-Dory. College can be pretty tough itself, and given the added pressure to repeat a semester or assignment, you might consider giving up. When situations like these arise, it is really important to visualize your goals like landing that dream job you always aspired about. Doing this will motivate you to continue working hard towards your goal and that the struggle is worth the reward. For more content like this visit Career Guide.