My favorite takeaway from this semester was one that was ingrained in us several times and I have had the opportunity to practice again and again and will be able to continue to do so throughout life. And that is: Dealing with rejection intellectually is different than dealing with it emotionally. This is lesson I could have practiced many times in the past. Freshman year I was turned down for two jobs I applied for. Immediately, I thought I was the failure instead of taking a step back and evaluating the situation intellectually. This is a crucial part of buoyancy. The importance of learning from our experiences is going to enable us to move forward better equipped. Failure and mistakes do not need to be hits to our confidence. This will push us further back than we were beforehand. Rather, we can take the knowledge and use it in the future, not letting it stop us from continuing on. I thought the distinction of handling things emotionally and intellectually is clarifying. It makes criticism always a positive thing. It takes humility and patience to wisely deal with rejection, but we are rewarded with progress and freedom from unhelpful emotions. I think of this helping me when I say the wrong thing to a friend, forgetting to turn in an assignment, and baking another failed macaron batch. I can choose to take a step back and think of how I can do things differently next time, instead of seeing it as a burden I cannot be rid of. My final thought is for this Christian, this has meaning in the grand scheme of life. When we take of Jesus’ identity, we are no longer defined by our mistakes. We want to learn from them to become more like our Savior, but we never have to carry the burden of our mistakes as a defining trait of who we are. That is our ultimate freedom.
BoweryJE22
So much of what you just said reminds me of the proverbs, where it is repeated that it is wise to take correction and learn from it. What a great outlook to take away from the semester!
So true and so important. Although I don’t have much sales experience, and therefore not many opportunities to fail, things like the job search have always been excruciating for me because of the amount of failure before success can happen. I think this is a lesson Grove City students need to hear much more, much earlier.