All my applications or the value of failure

If you are one of my students, you probably have heard me say, “There are a lot of grants and competitions out there. Apply for every single one that you you see. Apply, apply, apply.” Well, do I practice what I preach?

In this post, I want you to take a look at the results of my applications/ submissions/ competitions and analyze the success to failure ratio. I also want to tell you what I learned from my failures. I certainly hope that my story serves as an inspiration to persist and try, try, try again.

Here is my application history over the last years:


2013 IELTS Morgan Terry Memorial Scholarship – failed

2014 Communicative Assessment course by British Council – failed 

2014 Russian Language Assistant program in the UK – failed 

2014 Cambridge English Teacher Scholarship – failed 

2014 IELTS Morgan Terry Memorial Scholarship – failed 

2014 Essay Contest “Inspiring Teachers” – partly succeeded (didn’t win, but was shortlisted as a finalist, got a certificate, a book, and my essay was published in a serious journal)

2015 Guest blog post submission on OUP ELT Global Blog – succeeded, my post was published

2015 Essay Contest “My Inspiring Summer” – failed 

2014-2015 Fulbright FLTA program – succeeded!

Here is what learned from my failures:


- Lesson 1: Creating a relevant, powerful, and unique piece of writing takes me 2-4 weeks. The next time I decide to apply for something important, I will start well in advance.

- Lesson 2: Producing a linguistically excellent, but purely informational 500-word essay takes me 1-2 hours. I can write fast in order to meet a deadline. What I write fast might have little value.

- Lesson 3: The more applications I write, the easier it is for me to write them. Having written a lot of applications in the sphere of teaching, I have a lot of ready-to-use ideas, which makes writing each new application easier. (That said, I don’t write the same thing in all my applications. But before I write each new one, I do a lot of brainstorming, which is where I have all my ideas from.)

- Lesson 4: Failing at one thing doesn’t mean failing at all things. Failing one time doesn’t mean failing all the time. Having failed so often, I am not discouraged by the possibility of failure. In the end, I have not only failed, I have succeeded as well.

- Lesson 5: Failure is a sign that I didn’t do my utmost or my utmost is not what the world needs. So I learned and am still learning not to focus on myself and the way I see the world. I learned and am still learning to be open to new ideas, to explore, to move forward, to look at other people’s points of view, to look at my points of views from a different angle. I learned and am still learning to think outside the box.

When I won the Fulbright grant, my friends and students supported me, saying “This is a remarkable achievement! You have been selected out of hundreds of participants!” It’s true. Participating in Fulbright FLTA program really is a remarkable achievement and my proudest success story. But behind this success story, there are numerous failures that people don’t know about. What these failures have taught me is not to give up, but to try, try, try again.

I am going to persist and keep applying, submitting, competing. So should you. Don’t give up, but apply, apply, apply!

P.S.
Here is a quote about success and failure I like by Michael Jordan. I have no connection to basketball whatsoever, by the way, I just like the quote =).










http://quotesgram.com/img/michael-jordan-famous-failure-quotes/9437344/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to tame your IELTS pie charts

Top 8 mistakes Russian learners of English actually make

My Fulbright application or a teachable moment on essay writing

C2 Proficiency. Writing Task 2. Review (of a film I haven’t seen).