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February 6, 2023 By Jackie Gillies

On Failure

on failure

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little (read: very) grateful that my kids have transitioned back to the classroom. Still, I’m going to miss the extra time we spent together, with creative writing assignments and working through maths problems together.

My kids are at an age where I’m occasionally stumped by their maths homework. It’s been a while since I’ve had to do long division and BODMAS, and I’m convinced the steps are not the same as when I learnt them.

So every now and then over the last two years, my oldest and I have stared at his workbook with the same puzzled look. It was often frustrating for him, especially because he normally picks up new things quite quickly.

He got into the habit of saying, “I’m just not good at this.”

I got into the habit of adding, “Yet.”

And eventually he started adding it to the end of that sentence automatically.

As we approach the end of the year and the start of New Years’ resolution season, everyone is looking back at last year’s goals, and how well we did (or didn’t) do.

And even though we logically know that there’s at least one pretty big reason we might not have done everything we had planned, it can be frustrating and disappointing to look back and see what we haven’t achieved.

In an industry as competitive as law, I often find myself advising lawyers that one small set-back is not the end of their career.

Not doing something perfectly the first time you try, or even – the horror – receiving negative feedback is not the worst thing in the world. It’s not, even, a bad thing. If the best thing you’ve done in the last two years is simply getting through them, that’s more than enough.

As I tell my kids, there’s no such thing as failure – only success and learning.

Filed Under: Executive Coaching

Jackie Gillies

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