What Failure Taught Me By Tiana Owolabi

By Tiana Owolabi

AFRICA’s quintessential personality, Dr. Nelson Mandela made this remarkable assertion, “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again”.

Similarly, Napoleon Hill, an American author said “Most great people have attained their greatest success just one step beyond their greatest failure”.

Furthermore, a Chinese proverb says, “Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.”

This mindset is indeed my propeller, motivation and stimulus. Yes, I had failed woefully at a time. Hope you got me clearly? That’s my story.

And like anyone that failed in a task particularly in academics, it was a pain in my heart.

Right Now, I can’t even remember where I kept the result paper.

If you are reading this now and you have failed once or twice or even more in life and you think that’s the end of you….  No, that’s not it.

When I was in SS2, my parents decided that I should write GCE. That’s a good one, right?

If I could pass GCE, which shows that I should be able to pass WAEC or NECO.  For this reason, I registered for GCE and I started preparing for the exam.

I solved and answered questions in past questions booklet, read my books thorough and did all that is needed for the exam. Exam period came. I wrote the examination. As usual, the result came out after some months.

In most cases, this is usually the point where most students get scared to check examination result (especially for exams like GCE, WAEC, NECO, JAMB etc).

Knowing fully well that anyone who fails such exam or one of the core subjects needed, would have to repeat the exam or write an alternative one to it.

Guess what Happened!!!

Marilyn Monroe, an American artiste said “Just because you fail once, doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don’t, then who will, sweetie?”

I checked my exam result.

I FAILED. I had failed some of the core subjects. I don’t even know where I kept the exam result.

In spite of this, I drew some lessons from what this failure taught me.

1.) Failure made me see or know my shortcomings so I can know where/how to improve.

2.) Failure taught me how to be better than I was.

If you had been preparing with 1× speed before, you know you have to increase the speed to 2× or 3×.

Oftentimes, some people fail and refuse to rise up. Don’t be such kind of person.

Note: YOU CAN’T BE A FAILURE FOREVER

You aren’t a failure until you call yourself one.

Being a failure now does not make you a failure forever, only if you decide to step out of failure.

Without a doubt, Failure is a lesson for us on the pathway to Success.

Don’t wallow in your failure.

Chose to Rise up.

You are a Success.

You are made for more.

Kindly share with us what failure has taught you in life.

I hope this helps you to realize that YOU HAVE BEEN MADE TO SUCCEED.

HOW I LATER DEVELOPED AN INTEREST FOR PHYSICS SUBJECT

If you have disliked one or more subjects because the teaching was ‘kinda’ technical (I hope you understand), O ya raise your hands and let’s settle the matter finally.

Physics subject was a headache for me when I was in secondary school. I couldn’t love physics the same way I loved to solve mathematics.

WHY???

I concluded that our physics teacher was teaching us as if we were in the university.

Words will fail me right now if I start to explain how we were taught physics in class..

Perhaps, maybe I was the one that didn’t understand our teacher’s method of teaching. I can’t really say.

But You Know What?

I found a solution to it.

I studied the kind of person I am.

I knew if I ONLY depend on the way we were being taught in class, I might even end up having an “F” in Physics.

You know as a Science student, physics is a core subject for us.

For this reason, I told my parents about it and convinced Dad to buy New School (Ababio) Physics textbook for me so that I can read further on any Physics topic.

I started studying and solving questions in the textbook and this made me develop interest for Physics subject again and I excelled in it.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try one more time”.   – Thomas Edison.

Dear readers,

Some of us might think this issue I’m addressing today does not concern us since you are no more in secondary.

I have come to tell you that there might be some courses that you dislike too and it is compulsory you like that course so that you can pass you.

Rather than hating or disliking that subject because you don’t understand the way you are being taught, why not look for other ways to go about it?

Hating the subject or course will not solve the problem.

Some people will go to the extent of even disliking the teacher, trust me, it won’t solve the problem because you will be the one that will be faced with the question paper when it is exam period.

What is that particular thing that you know you need but you don’t like?

Develop interest in it.

Look for ways to get better.

Learn from friends who can help out in that aspect.

Pray about it as well.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks for reading. You are AMAZING.

Feel free to share, drop your contributions and questions in the comment section or my inbox. I will be glad to respond as soon as possible.

-Tiana Owolabi (08068221976)