Mending my relationship with failure: how to overcome it

I'll start off with speaking about how I failed my way into tech. In 2018, I realised that I didn't want to pursue my dreams of working at a Big 4 firm in finance but instead I wanted to learn how to code and eventually become a software engineer.

I started with the Code First Girls Web Development course, and I have to say it didn't come naturally to me. Every week, we were asked questions about things we covered the week beforehand and I hardly ever knew the answer.

It was brand new to learn that it was so normal to break things and to get used to not only seeing error messages but using them as a tool to debug. This was definitely not encouraged in finance. I highly doubt they say, if you get the numbers a bit wrong, it's all good!

The experience allowed me to assess my relationship with failure, and how I let it dictate how I felt and the decisions it led me to make.

You can read more about my journey into learning how to code and landing my first software engineer role.

When you think about failure, how does that make you feel?

For me, it is:

• Panicked
• Embarrassment
• Low self-esteem
• Feeling like all eyes are on me and everyone can see how awful I am
• Low mood
• Fear
• Heightened levels of anxiety
• Demotivated
• Feelings of wanting to escape

The list could honestly go on.

The questions that have helped me through this

Failure is an inevitable part of life, and finally accepting this fact made me ask myself a few questions when I failed at something.

1. What can I learn from this failure? Knowing that everyone fails and that most people learn and grow from it.
2. Should I look at this as a failure or a learning experience?
3. What would have happened if I didn't fail?

Doing technical interviews coming from a non-technical background was extremely challenging. I had a nightmare interview where I thought I was going to be asked behavioral questions but it turned out to be a full-on live coding interview. I was completely unprepared and I needed guidance throughout - it was my first ever front-end interview and I didn't have a clue!!!

However, despite me screaming internally throughout the whole thing and strongly considering just turning off my wifi in an attempt to save me from embarrassment, I learned so much from that interview.

Instead of looking back on it as a complete and utter failure, I had a great learning opportunity which was an insight into how front-end interviews are conducted. At the time, I didn't know about the importance of being able to work with APIs and what kind of questions were asked for a front-end role.

I truly believe that everything that has worked out for me comes from so many things I have failed at. The question of what would have happened if I didn't fail helps me to recognise that my greatest lessons have come from failure. If I hadn't have failed the sales graduate roles applications, I may have never ended up in tech.

Bouncing back from failure

Do not get me wrong, this DOES NOT happen overnight. When I had that awful interview, I had the worst imposter syndrome, I started to think I wasn't good enough to land a front-end role, and that maybe I should give up on my pursuit in coding.

I truly believe that failure is not who you are, it is something that you experience. When I stopped attaching myself to being a failure, I focused on my goals at hand and sourced inspiration by watching a bunch of videos of people who came in with no CS degree.

If I was truly going to land my role as planned, the options were to either quit, or keep going. I've also written a blog post with 6 tips on how to make the most out of your interviews.

When you get to a point where you are able to bounce back from failure, you can then learn to be able to mend your relationship by embracing failure and welcoming it to teach you lessons - not only something that everyone does, but that it is a necessary path for you to grow and reach your full potential.

Fail early, fail often, fail forward

Will Smith has such an inspiring video where he says that successful people fail a lot, but they extract the lessons from the failure to come around to the next phase of success. Failure actually helps you to recognise the areas where you need to evolve.

So now we know that failure is not only necessary but its beneficial - how do we start the journey to overcome our fear of failure?

What you can do right now

1. Remember that social media shows the highlight reels. We all know it, but sometimes in the moment when I'm doom scrolling on social media and in particular with LinkedIn, I feel bombarded reading about how everyone's lives seems to be doing so well.
   
   When I saw people landing their roles, it made me question if I was good enough. The reality is that most people fail a bunch of interviews before they land their first roles.
   
   In 2020, my friend got two amazing offers to pursue a technical role. I was so happy for her and it was inspiring for me to see as she was so talented. She reminded me that she failed interviews at the top companies before she got these two great job offers.
   
   I kind of shrugged off that she failed so much because who cares now that she's in such a great position. And I realised that for others, I could focus on their wins and not on their losses, but for myself, I focused so much on my losses rather than my wins.
2. Document your wins. Sometimes, we are more likely to define ourselves based on the times we failed rather than the times we won. It can be so easy to forget the little wins, but it really helped me out to create a wins tracker. I got the idea from attending a Confident and Killing it workshop, where the founder Tiwalola showed us the template that she created called the monthly wins tracker.
   
   When I was having my low days, where I questioned all my abilities and felt like I haven't done much, I would look back at my wins tracker which told me otherwise! I still do it to this day, and it makes such a difference.
3. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Sometimes we can't necessarily get rid of that feeling of fear. I've heard people say that when you feel fear, it's the same feeling as excitement and to reframe your mind to see it as you being excited (sometimes this works for me, but also a lot of the time it doesn't).
   
   People don't necessarily think that every time I post on LinkedIn that I'm always so scared. I start thinking about what if people think this is cringe, or what if they don't like the message, what if people judge me because I'm THAT person who is active on LinkedIn.
   
   However, despite that, I continue to post anyway. It makes a huge difference when people go out of their way to comment or message me about the content I've been creating, and I add all that feedback to my monthly wins!
4. Don't feed the critic. Our inner critic can tell us that we can't, that we're not good enough, and that the worst-case scenario will happen.
   
   It look me a long time to actively become aware of this and to challenge those thoughts. Looking at my wins, starting to consider the best case scenario, getting therapy, reading, and reaching out to people have all helped with dealing with those thoughts.
   
   Please remember, that it this takes time, and to give yourself some grace knowing that we are all a work in progress.
5. Know your strengths. When we are so afraid of failure, we are convinced that our weaknesses outweigh our strengths.
   
   Confidence comes from knowing who you are and especially what your strengths are. This involves quite a bit of self-awareness, but explore what your strengths are, and also ask other people who you spend the most time with what they think your strengths are.
   
   When you focus on your strengths it is much easier to have faith in yourself.

Now you've finished reading this, I'd love to know what you'll do differently the next time you fail.