SESSION 5: Turning Failure into Success

Transcription

1 PROGRAM CURRICULUM SESSION 5: Turning Failure into Success Many girls learn to fear failure from an early age. Getting the correct answer in school is rewarded, while the wrong answer is negatively reinforced in various ways, such as low grades, scolding from a teacher, or teasing from a classmate. Fear of experiencing a failure might be motivating to some, but it can often be paralyzing and keep many adolescent girls feeling stuck and afraid to try new things or go after big goals in life. This session aims to directly address the fear of failure by introducing the idea that experiencing a failure is a key step in the process of learning and growing. In this session, participants will learn about resilience and how to reframe experiencing a failure to understand the usefulness of mistakes in order to move forward. Learning Objectives: Upon completion of this session, program participants will be able to: 1. identify key characteristics of resilience and apply them to examples. 2. consider lessons learned from experiencing failures that lead to growth and learning. Accompanying Handouts: Seven Characteristics of Resilience handout Learning from Setbacks worksheet Supplies Needed: Human Knot Activity Defining Resilience Agenda Failing Forward: A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure Putting It Into Practice Closing Activity Total Nametags (1 for each participant) Prepared Failing Forward: A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure Stopwatch Whiteboard, Flipchart or Laptop with Display Screen Markers 18 minutes 15 minutes 13 minutes 12 minutes 2 minutes 60 minutes 1709 Spruce St. Philadelphia, PA siahq@soroptimist.org Soroptimist.org LiveYourDream.org Soroptimist International of the Americas

2 This session requires one main facilitator. Additional facilitators are suggested for every six-twelve participants. Additional facilitators may join the Human Knot activity, and will lead group discussion following the Human Knot activity. Additional facilitators are also suggested to sit with and/or circulate the room as participants work to complete their Learning from Setbacks worksheet. Preparing for Session 5 Before the session, consult your Girls Advisory Group for examples of experiencing failure that girls might share during the session. This session addresses failure in a straightforward way in an effort to reduce stigma that surrounds failure and aims to instead shift the focus to important learning that may come about as a result of experiencing a failure. It is important for facilitators to emphasize that experiencing a failure does not mean someone is personally a failure. Facilitators should be sure to have the handout containing contact information for school and community counselors for this session. If sharing or thinking about past mistakes trigger feelings that girls would like to discuss further with a trusted adult, club members may refer a participant. Before the session, one Soroptimist club member or other female community member should prepare a five-minute Story of Success through Experiencing Failure. The story should provide an in-depth explanation of one or more times in her career or personal life that she made a mistake or failed at something. Provide some brief context for the situation, and then review the details of the failure and its consequences. The club member or community member should then describe how she recovered from the situation and what she learned from it. This description should include at least one characteristic from the Seven Characteristics of Resilience handout. If possible, the club member or community member should include several characteristics of resilience from the handout in her description of how she recovered from her experience with failure. For example, failing to finish a team project on time might have encouraged the club member or community member to work out a more effective way to communicate with her team members. She might have relied on insight (characteristic 1) to figure out the problem, and creativity (characteristic 2) to figure out how to solve it. The club member or community member should inform participants about positive results that came about in her career or personal life because of the failure. A. Human Knot Activity (16 minutes) Divide participants into groups of ten to twelve people. Additional facilitators may join the groups to make the group size equal ten to twelve people. Instruct participants: Arrange yourselves in a circle, standing shoulder to shoulder. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 2 of 9

3 Put your right hand up in the air. Grab the hand of someone across the circle from you. Put your left hand up in the air. Grab the hand of a different person across the circle from you. Ensure that everyone is holding the hands of two different people and participants are not holding hands with someone directly next to them. Inform participants: The goal is to untangle yourselves and return to the shape of a circle without breaking the chain of hands. You have three minutes to complete the task. If any participants break the chain, the whole process needs to start over. Keep time with the stopwatch and inform participants when three minutes have passed. The challenge is very difficult to accomplish within the given time, so almost every group will likely be unable to complete the task. It is important to process this experience of failure through discussion. Instruct participants to sit down with their group. A facilitator should sit with each group to lead discussion. Prompt discussion with the following questions: What happened? How did you feel throughout the activity? How did you feel when/if you had to start over? (Acknowledge feelings of frustration, anxiety, etc.) What did you notice about the group? o What worked well? o What went wrong? Did how this activity turned out feel like a failure? o Why? o Why not? What does experiencing a failure look like or mean to you? o What are some examples? (Solicit two or three examples.) After twelve minutes have passed, conclude the discussion. Summarize participant input to form a cohesive definition of experiencing failure that is specific to the group. Explain to participants: In general, experiencing failure means experiencing an incident in life where something goes wrong or does not go according to plan. Often, we experience failure when we make mistakes that prevent us from meeting our goals or values. Experiencing failure can be scary, but it is also natural. Despite our feelings of fear or disappointment, it s important to remember that we are only human. We all make mistakes and experience failure sometimes, but that does not mean that we ourselves are failures. Feeling frustrated and experiencing failure was likely in this activity, and also likely along the way of working towards our dreams, whether related to our career or personal life. If we know we are likely to experience failure at some point in our lives, what can we do about our fear of it? Should we avoid reaching for our dreams? Should we not try new things? No. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 3 of 9

4 Instead, we can work to accept that we will likely blow it at some point, and we can focus on being resilient, which is how one reacts and responds to these setbacks that we will probably face. B. Defining Resilience (15 minutes) Gather participants into one group. On a board or screen, display the phrase, If we experience a failure we get... Instruct participants: Think back to a time when you screwed up at something that was important to you... It could be related to school, home, friends, or something else. Ask participants: What words come to mind as you think about this situation? What feelings come to mind as you recall this situation? On a board or screen, write several participant responses in a left vertical column underneath the If we experience failure we get... prompt. Some of the responses might include frustrated, disappointed, angry, embarrassed, defeated, or other similar emotions. After recording approximately eight words, write the word THEN directly underneath or to the right of the prompt. Ask participants: How did you recover? How else did you react? Did anything positive come out of it? Write down the positive words within participant responses directly underneath or to the right of the word THEN. Examples of positive emotions might include brave, determined, moved on, etc. Examples of positive reactions might include, sought counseling, talked it over with a friend, etc. Ask participants: Have you heard of resilience? Who can tell me what it means to you? Who else has a definition? On a board or screen, display the definition of the word resilience: Resilience is the ability to bounce back from frustrations and to recover from setbacks. Resilient individuals adapt to change, stress or problems and are able to take things in stride. The result of this bouncing back is a feeling of success and confidence. Ask participants: Does this definition sound familiar? Circle the right column of positive words, emphasizing that the outcome of struggle can lead us to these positive feelings and experiences. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 4 of 9

5 Distribute the Seven Characteristics of Resilience handout. Instruct participants to silently read the handout, or call on seven participants to each read one characteristic aloud. After the participants have read the handout, again normalize failure by saying: We all will probably experience a failure at some point in our lives. Provide two examples, such as not standing up to a bully or damaging a friendship. Ask participants: Can you share an example of when you had to use one of these characteristics to recover from a bad situation or screw up? Explain to participants: This is a judgment free space. We are here to learn from each other and not judge each other. You will not be judged for anything you share. Call on two or three participants to share, depending on how brief the responses. Thank participants for sharing and acknowledge the skills they used in dealing with failure. Encourage participants: Rely on existing support systems o in your family (a parent, grandparent, older sibling or cousin), o friends you can trust, o school (a teacher, coach, guidance counselor or social worker), o community (name a few specific local organizations or community members), o religious leaders (member of the clergy, rabbi, imam, etc.), and o Soroptimist club members. These people can help you o talk about your experience of failure, o consider what characteristics can be used to build resilience, and o think about what can be learned as a result of the experience. C. Failing Forward: A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure (13 minutes) Explain to participants: As you make your way through school and adolescence, you will likely experience failure. I know that feels scary. But you should know we can usually learn something from the experience that makes us better. Adults sometimes fail too. Many of us have learned that mistakes and screw-ups are going to happen at some point. But what is more important is how we deal with and recover from them. That is what makes us successful in the long-term. Inform participants: [Name of Soroptimist club member or community member] will now present Failing Forward: A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 5 of 9

6 [Presentation: See Club Project Guide for instructions on how to prepare A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure ] After she is finished speaking, ask participants: What failure did [Name of Soroptimist club member or community member] experience? Which resilience characteristic(s) did she rely on? Can you think of examples from the story that led to something positive? So do you think experiencing a failure be useful? Call on several participants to answer these questions. Then, explain to participants: It can be uncomfortable and difficult to review our past mistakes. The purpose of reviewing mistakes is not to get caught up in them and feel a sense of low self-worth. Remember, experiencing a failure at something does not mean that YOU are a failure. Instead, we deal with the situation the best way we know how in the moment. Then, after the situation is addressed, take a step back from the mistake in order to learn as much as possible from the experience. Experiencing failure is probably inevitable, but you have the power to determine how you handle it and what you learn from it. D. Putting It Into Practice (12 minutes) Explain to participants: The focus of this session is on the critical learning and growth that can come from experiencing a failure. You will now have the opportunity to consider experiences with failure in your own lives and what came from them. This activity might feel uncomfortable to you because you may have only looked at experiencing failure in a negative way before. Now you will have the opportunity to practice looking at your mistakes in a way that could reveal some positive results or learning that you might have not thought about before. Facilitators can help you with this activity. Distribute a Learning from Setbacks worksheet to each participant. Instruct participants: Think back to a few occasions in your life when you may have made mistakes or totally bombed at something (especially when trying something for the first time). Write these instances in the left column of the worksheet. No one will be judged for what you write; we are all human and we all make mistakes and experience failure at something. You will not be asked to share what you write, nor will the worksheets be handed in or shared publicly. The worksheet is for your benefit only, and no one else will get to see what you write down. Try to be as honest and thorough as possible. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 6 of 9

7 For each experience of failure, instruct participants: Think about the negative results of these situations. The negative results usually come to mind first because that is what we tend to focus on. Fill these in underneath the Negative Results column of the worksheet. Next, for each experience of failure, instruct participants: Think about anything positive that may have come about as a result of the experience. For some mistakes it might be difficult to think of positive results, or there might not be any, and that is OK. Try to think of anything that may have changed for the better. List that underneath the Positive Results column. Lastly, for each experience of failure, instruct participants: Think about what you may have learned from the experience. o Did you use any of the characteristics of resilience? o Did the experience help you understand something better? o Did it allow you to do something differently the next time? o Did it teach you something about yourself? o (Display these prompting questions somewhere in the room if possible.) Write your answers underneath the What I Learned column. Additional facilitators should circulate the room to provide extra support to participants as they complete the Learning from Setbacks worksheet. If participants cannot think of examples, ask prompting questions such as: Can you think of a time when something didn t go your way? Have you ever o Not prepared for a test or a presentation at school? o Tried to avoid doing something you knew was bad for you, but did it anyway? o Put yourself out there to a friend or a crush and felt rejected? o Tried to stand up to a family member or a teacher, but it didn t work out? To conclude the activity, explain to participants: It can be challenging to take an honest look at experiencing failure. But when we get in the habit of considering what can be learned from our mistakes (like what we just practiced), we can set ourselves up for success. E. Closing Activity (2 minutes) Divide participants into groups of up to ten people. Instruct participants: Stand in a circle. Share one word that expresses how you are feeling right now about today s conversations and activities. Is someone willing to go first? Proceed around the circle until everyone has shared. Explain that the session has ended and thank participants for their participation. Soroptimist International of the Americas. October page 7 of 9

8 Seven Characteristics of Resilience INSIGHT TURNING FAILURE INTO SUCCESS HANDOUT Having insight means asking questions of yourself, even when the questions are difficult. If you answer honestly, you can learn and move forward. Having insight helps you understand the problem and how to best solve it. Insight helps you analyze the situation from as many perspectives as you can. INDEPENDENCE Showing independence means keeping a healthy distance between yourself and other people so you can think things through and do what is best for you. It also means knowing how to step away from people who seem to cause trouble or make things worse by their words or actions. RELATIONSHIPS Building relationships means finding connections with people that are healthy for both of you and keeping those relationships growing. INITIATIVE Taking the initiative means taking control of the problem and working to solve it. It means asking questions of yourself and answering them as honestly as you can, so you can move past a sticky situation. Sometimes people who take initiative become the leader in activities and teamwork. CREATIVITY Using creativity requires that you use your imagination or resourcefulness to express your feelings, thoughts and plans in some unique way. Remember that when you make something happen, it shows resiliency of spirit and a positive attitude. HUMOR Humor is the ability to find something funny (especially yourself!) in a situation, even when things seem really bad. Humor often gives you the perspective needed to relieve tension and make a situation better. INTEGRITY Being a person of integrity means knowing the difference between right and wrong and being willing to choose and stand up for what is right. Soroptimist International of the Americas SOROPTIMIST.ORG LIVEYOURDREAM.ORG

9 Learning from Setbacks TURNING FAILURE INTO SUCCESS HANDOUT The Setback Negative Results Positive Results What You Learned Soroptimist International of the Americas SOROPTIMIST.ORG LIVEYOURDREAM.ORG