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CU Boulder | Life

The One Where We Talk About Failure

Rodayna Eissa Student Contributor, University of Colorado - Boulder
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at CU Boulder chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

Failure is defined as lack of success or a fracture under stress. I spend a lot of my time trying to convince myself that I am, in fact, not a failure. The feeling that you’re not doing enough — that you’re not enough — is like a quicksand trap that leaves you fighting  to keep your head up before you suffocate under the weight. I truly don’t think I’ve ever hated anything more than the feeling of not being enough. 

It’s easy to see with school. The crippling sense of failure that hits when I see a grade anything less than an A sends me into a downward spiral that ends somewhere along the lines of: I need to drop out and move back in with my parents and I’m never going to amount to anything. I admit, it’s a tad dramatic.  It’s entirely fair to say that I’ve relied on academic validation since I was a child. The satisfaction and relief that I get when seeing an A has kept me going for quite some time. 

I was a straight A, 4.5 GPA student, playing competitive sports and doing the most throughout the entirety of my elementary to high school years. I convinced myself I had the formula on lock and I could carry that energy into college. But then I actually got to college, realized that perfection is, in fact, not possible, and I’ve now spent four years attempting to convince myself that I’m bound to mess up here and there, and that’s ok. I’ve changed my career path four times now, and every time I do, it feels like a personal failure that I couldn’t see another decision through. I’ve tied my self worth so closely with my academics for so long that I inevitably burned out in a spectacular supernova that culminated in a few wondrously disastrous meltdowns. In the grand scheme of life, college really is just a drop in the bucket. A bad grade isn’t and shouldn’t ruin my entire week. Changing my mind isn’t the end of the world and doesn’t mean that I’ll never amount to anything. 

School might be the easiest way to see it, but that sense of failing haunts everything and everywhere. It trickles down into the way I interact with people in my life, old and new. In my eyes, I’m hurtling towards — if not already at — a stalled out massive F in every facet of my life, so why would anyone want to be part of that? I mean lord knows I don’t. Every rejection and ended relationship — friendship or romantic — was another tally on my chart of ways I failed. I sat there and picked everything apart: I wasn’t happy enough, I wasn’t smart enough, I wasn’t pretty enough, I just wasn’t enough. Everything always came back to the same conclusion: I failed. Really fun way to think, right? 

Reality check time, because, let’s be honest, that was one big doom spiral. I’m a whopping 21-years old (ancient, I know), and there’s so much more to life than what I see when I get caught in the pattern of so-called “failures.” I’m not going to lie to you, I suck at taking my own advice, but recently, I’ve been attempting to redefine failure in my mind. I constantly tell people around me when they’re upset by a bad grade or a rough situation that it doesn’t mean they failed, it just means they need to take a step back and try again. Reassess and, as long as you’re giving it your best shot, you’re doing just fine. Failing is an inevitable part of life and, yes, it absolutely blows, but it’s also how we reach the point of not failing. I have to tell myself this over and over and over again, because as most things are, it’s way easier said than done. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still cry over a bad grade and have the occasional meltdown that I’m totally failing at life. I still have to sit with my therapist and unpack the fact that I’m being a total idiot when I stamp my entire existence with a big red F. There’s a lot of mental hurdles to jump, but separating a fail from being a failure is something that I think a lot of people need and struggle with. If you get anything out of this, stop cutting yourself short. You’re doing great, even if it doesn’t feel like it. 

Rodayna Eissa

CU Boulder '26

Rodayna Eissa joined the Her Campus CU Boulder chapter as a contributing writer in the Fall of 2024. Her areas of interest as a writer include entertainment and media–particularly in regards to the movie industry–mental health, creative writing, and politics. As a reader and writer, she is a staunch defender of the oxford comma. She has worked as a bookseller and barista for over three years now. Rodayna is in her final year at the university where she is pursuing a pre-law degree in International Relations with a focus on the region of the Middle East and Africa.

When she’s not writing, Rodayna can usually be found indulging in one too many cups of coffee while hiding with a book, building legos, spending time with her family and friends, or rewatching Star Wars for the millionth time.