My Dream of Making The Dean's List and The Fear of Failure

I always wanted to make the dean’s list and unfortunately I have been unable to do so which can be very frustrating when you try your very best and it isn’t good enough. I mean I try everything possible to get straight A’s and nothing seems to work. I have got a tutor for every class possible and it helps bring my grade up but not high enough to where I need it to be. I try multiple studying techniques all of which seem effective but I don’t really do too much better on my test. I do all extra credit assignments that are available but those tend to be only worth a few points so it doesn’t make much of a difference. Now under no circumstances am I saying that I am doing horrible in college, I am actually doing really well achieving A’s & B’s. I learned that pluses and minuses make a big difference with grades and GPA so even though I got A’s and B’s those grades were too low in their percent tile for me to make the dean’s list, I want to at least make it once before I graduate.

I would always call home and tell my parents about my grades and how I felt and they responded two completely different ways but were both helpful in their own unique way of comforting me. When my mom would listen to me talk about my grades she would tell me how proud of me she was and that I tried my best and that I would get it next time. She never once let me talk bad about myself and she always encouraged me to try my best and that is more than enough when it comes to my grades. Now my dad did the same but he did it with more of a just try to not get lower than a C and he’s okay with it. He knew how hard I was working and pushing myself and he didn’t want me going overboard and stressing myself out more than I had to. Once I got to college is when he came to be very encouraging and always telling me he was proud of me which meant a lot and would calm me down when I would freak out about my grades. Both of my parents are very supportive and let me know that no matter what happens they are always proud of me and that they always will be and that means more to me than they will ever know.

My biggest fear was always failure itself, never being able to be good enough for anyone or anything. Now my dad is very supportive but when I was younger all he focused on was where I could improve. Nothing I ever did was good enough so I always felt like a failure because if I can’t even make my own family proud than how am I supposed to make others proud and show them that I am more than good enough. A lot of my childhood was spent trying to make my dad proud of me, my mom was very supportive and always there for me which I am forever grateful for but I crave the approval of him. I didn’t get that growing up so I always felt like a failure and like I would never be able to be successful because of the fact that I couldn’t even get the approval of my dad. My dad first time telling me he was proud of me was towards the end of my freshman year fall semester so about a year ago…I cried due to the fact that I had finally succeeded at what I wanted to for so long but I couldn’t figure out why it took so long for it to happen. He had this tough love mentality and just never gave encouraging words because he didn’t want us to get used to being complimented or getting rewarded for doing what we were supposed to do in the first place. Looking back on it, I understand where he was coming from but I don’t think his way of trying to make his point helped me at all. I honestly think it hurt me more than anything else because I just always felt like I was a failure. I will thank him though for being hard on me because it pushed me to work harder and never give up even when I wanted to. My mom helped me a lot when it came to not giving up and keeping me going and for that I thank her as well.

I learned that you can’t succeed at everything as well as you can’t please everyone. You will fail at certain points of your life but I believe you fail at certain things because there is something better and more worthy of your time, energy, and focus. If you try your best and it doesn’t get you to where you want to be then that is okay, the fact that you tried your best should be more than enough and you can try a different approach next time. No one is 100% successful and no one is a 100% failure. Failures are lessons you learn from to figure out how to finally come to the solution you want and I think they are very much necessary believe it or not. If you never fail, you won’t understand the meaning of success nor will you appreciate it and then it won’t mean anything. At the time it might not seem like a good thing to fail but in the end it was part of an instruction to steer you in the right direction to success.