Just try it.
You might fail. People might see you fail. But that doesn’t mean you should avoid it.
Whether it’s a hobby, a class, a job or even something relational, failing is crucial to growing and learning.
Many people in the Bible failed, yet God still used them, said Hannah Richardson, assistant professor of art education and pre-art therapy. God redeemed Joseph, Jacob, David, Paul and all of Israel.
Matt Decker, associate professor of psychology, also mentioned the heroes of the Bible. They took big risks, and they were not comfortable, he said.
“They were human, just like the rest of us,” Decker said. “The difference was they had the ability to say, ‘Even though this is uncomfortable or scary, I know it’s important, so I’m going to do it, come what may.’ I think historically people have been better at that than we are now.”
Students come to Taylor to learn, which should not depend on grades, Decker said.
Richardson designs her assignments to help students take their eyes off their GPAs and focus on taking risks and growing. Sometimes, students need to submit something they are not completely satisfied with.
Even if someone else says you have failed, you have gathered your best and presented it to God, Richardson said.
Learning involves curiosity and risk-taking; it means stretching yourself and your abilities. It means taking time to reflect on the feedback, Richardson said. She said in the art world, you have to figure out how to do it.
“If I were to tell you how to do it, it would be my art,” Richardson said. “It wouldn’t be your art anymore, and so it has to be done in a sense of exploratory and openness and curiosity and risk-taking, and that takes a lot of trust. Trust in not only the process, which feels like a cliche, but trust in something better at work. Trust that God has me here right now, right here.”
Engineers test their theories with a similar process called “iterative design process.”
Whether on paper or in practice, an engineer tries a solution to a problem, fails, reflects, revises and tries again, said Peter Staritz, chair of the physics and engineering department.
Failure is the difference between the model we imagine and reality and all of its complexities and variables, Staritz said.
Whether it is math or the imagination, people have expectations for how something will go. Results may vary.
“We do our best to create a model, and then we recognize that it’s going to be imperfect,” Staritz said. “We try it out, we break it and we refine it and try it again. Or maybe it works the first time, and that’s fine, but the point is that the concept of ‘fail fast, fail often’ is you’re pushing the limits. So do the math, do your best and then put it to the test. If it fails, figure out why, rinse and repeat, and just keep doing that.”
The point, however, is not the product but the process.
Richardson likes to take more time on certain projects to let her students reflect on the feedback and make changes. By the end, they are dying to move on. Yet, they understand how their work can be even better.
There are two things that go into failing, Decker said: self-efficacy and knowing boundaries.
Self-efficacy is failing over and over until you finally succeed. If you did a hard thing before, you can do a hard thing again. Failing is scary, but self-efficacy is building evidence that you can do hard things.
If someone never tries anything, they will never know what they can achieve.
“They have a very limited insight into how far they actually can go, and so that’s kind of fear,” Decker said.
Rather than avoid these experiences, we can grow by embracing them. Decker encourages people to sit in the discomfort, build up a tolerance for it and step out of the normal into the new.
Failure should move you forward, Decker said. Values give you direction and goals get you closer. If you are drifting further from your values, then you can reevaluate.
As sinful people, we may never reach our values. But, we can get closer, Decker said.
We are imperfect, affected by sin, Staritz said, but the Holy Spirit guides us, calls us, refines us.
“God uses this (failure) to refine us, and engineering is just an echo of His creation in us,” Staritz said.
Even though we are born as failures, we are redeemed in Christ, Richardson said.
Our identity is not in the process, the progress or the product. Our identity is in God: His view of us, His desires for us. Jesus has given us a new freedom with His resurrection, Richardson said.
“That pain of failure, that pain of death, that pain of whatever circumstances happen, doesn’t have the same sting because that failure has already been taken care of,” Richardson said.
Richardson said it stings to fail an assignment, and she hates failing people. But she reminds herself that the grade is not the full picture of who we are, who God is or what God is doing.
Failing grows us closer to God. It fosters virtues, Richardson said. It leads to a stronger dependence on Him.
Continuing to fail over and over can be exhausting. It can be discouraging. But Staritz encourages people to listen to where God is calling them. Our goal is not to be the best; Our goal is to steward our gifts to glorify God, Staritz said.
There can be peace, whether you fail or succeed, Richardson said. She recommended the liturgy “Fearing Failure” from the book “Every Moment Holy.”
“If we can have a real understanding of who we are in Christ and our identity is truly rooted in who He says we are, we can have peace to try and to trust and to fail,” Richardson said.
Go fail at something. It may be the best thing you could do.
