Throughout this semester I have been taking a class on public speaking and I’ve had to do many long speeches in front of many people. I got poor grades on the first four exams and only on the fifth did I finally receive a C. I spent hour and hours working on and practicing those speeches, and ultimately failed. Every time I learned feedback from my professor I did my best to incorporate it into the next speech, but with the increasing expectations, I was unable to get a decent grade.
I learned that just because you fail more than once doesn’t mean that you won’t succeed in the end. It took me 5 tries to get a decent grade but I’m so glad I didn’t give up or drop the class because I wouldn’t have finally earned this grade. I also learned that truth behind the quote “failure isn’t defined by falling down, but defined by not getting back up” meaning that it's really okay to fail as long as you don’t let it get to you, and you continue to push forward.
I got very embarrassed when I performed a poor speech in front of my class and would go home and sulk about it and be sad for a while. After the first few failed speeches I realized that sulking wasn’t helping and was silly to dwell on. I could only do better and work harder for the next speech and I’d get more done without being sad. This class has taught me that without risk there can be no reward and that everyone encounters failure. We can’t avoid risk to avoid failure but rather we must embrace it, and learn from our failures. I am much more likely to take risks now than I would have been at the start of the semester.
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