LOS ANGELES – A bad day at school can lead to a bad week which turns into a bad month and spirals into a bad year. Maybe you bombed a midterm or didn’t get into that prestigious club you spent hours preparing to interview for. One negative experience can easily snowball if we let it.
I’ll be honest, all of these things have happened to me. Though many of us face much bigger struggles in our personal lives, it can still take a conscious effort to ignore academic shortcomings.
Imagine you’re feeling sorry for yourself because you went through the entire interview process to get into a club and you receive this email later that day:
“It was so great speaking with you but unfortunately we will not be offering you a spot in our Fall intern class.” No matter how a rejection email is worded, it still stings to get one.
You might be tempted to blow off your classes for the day, make your roommate listen to you rant about how the selection process for that club was entirely unfair, or write a post on your college’s Reddit about how “friendship nepotism” shouldn’t be the deciding factor for who gets to join the most prestigious consulting club on campus.
You might feel some weight lifted off your shoulders if you act on the impulse to brood when you feel defeated, but this isn’t a productive use of your time.
What if you had a plan to make the feelings of rejection and inadequacy go away— or at least get them out of your way so you can keep working towards your goals?
It took me years to figure out that the time we spend lingering on failure is an opportunity cost we can’t afford as college students.
I’m going to walk you through my process. You can take or leave whatever aspects of it you would like. Even if this sounds too introspective or intuitive to you, just hear me out.
First I start by processing whatever just happened to me. Say I got a not-so-great score on a midterm. I’ll ask myself if there is anything I can do about it. If the answer is no, move on to step two.
If I can do something about it, I put together a plan. I’ll ask myself to list out the things I can do in response to whatever adversity I am facing.
Let’s go back to the poor midterm score example. Can I go speak with my professor or TA? How much of my grade is this test worth? If I kill it on the final, can I boost my grade up to where I want it to be? These are all questions I would ask myself to process something and figure out what my next move is going to be.
After getting my plan together, I need to focus my energy on executing.
This leads me to the most important part. Step two is to not linger on the failure. Whether there is something you can do or not, letting anything negative consume your mind is distracting and unproductive.
Though challenging, the best thing you can do for yourself is to ignore the voice in your head that makes you overthink everything you might have done wrong or what you could have done differently. What’s done is done. Looking to the future is the best thing you can do for yourself.
However, there is a lot to learn from letdowns. Make a mental note of things you can do better in the future, but don’t let it consume you.
Finally, it’s time to move on. You’ve processed and decided not to allow yourself to doubt your abilities or intellect. Now you’re on to bigger and better things. Whether it’s following a plan to bounce back or finding a new opportunity to pursue, you’re taking steps to better yourself.
Have you ever heard someone say that the best way to get over a breakup is to move on to the next? Most people don’t want to hear that when they’re going through it, but sometimes these cliche sayings have some truth to them.
Let’s circle back to that idea of opportunity cost. If you don’t get over the rejection or defeat, you might miss out on a chance to redeem yourself or grow.
Ultimately, I’m not trying to tell you how to handle academic and extracurricular disappointments in your life. Everyone is different and what works for me might not work for you. I hope someone can take something away from my years of experience bouncing back from rejection or failure.
Whether you are a student or not, there are always ways to work on strategies to become more resilient. If you’re the type of person who always gets the acceptance letter or job offer, this article probably isn’t for you— please let me know what your secret is.
