Goals, Hopes, Dreams, and Failures

Everyone has dreams, whether they express them or not. Here in the Digital Media Design program, each student has some vision of how they will fit into the world of design, some area of that field in which they hope to grow and succeed. The DMD program opens up a new world of opportunities for students to learn and achieve their goals. Yet, as you make your way through the program and try to absorb and apply all the information, you sometimes find that parts of it are not as easy for you as they are for others. You don’t catch on as fast as you hoped. In fact, sometimes you fail altogether.

Let’s face it. As much as anyone tells you that you can learn from your mistakes, it's hard to view failing in any positive way, especially when you’re in the middle of it. If you’re like me, anticipating failure can be as bad as experiencing it. If I am not careful, I can find myself becoming paralyzed by the apprehension of messing up, falling short, failing. I have to constantly force myself to put those feelings aside and focus on giving my best effort. After all, the worst failures are when you realize that you might have succeeded if you had truly done your best.

As I work with other students, I sometimes hear the phrase, “I just don’t care anymore.” I know that I have felt this way myself. Failing hurts. It’s so discouraging to put hours into a project and end up with something that looks like you didn’t really try. It’s hard to feel like you are so far behind some of your fellow students. Sometimes it seems easier to act like you don’t really care, but deep down you do care; that’s why you’re in the program, and if you stop trying you will never achieve your goals and dreams.

I recently watched a documentary by Honda called “Failure: The Secret to Success.” I was particularly struck by the complete failure of Honda’s first race car engines. The whole program was a total disaster. The company could have decided to back out of race car engine production, yet they learned from their mistakes and reworked and improved their engine. The next year Honda won its first race and the year after won the championship.

I have experienced this kind of improvement in the Digital Media Design program. Most of us are far from perfect when we start. It can be really hard to have an instructor or fellow student show you all of the flaws in your work, but when you apply what you learned from your mistakes and rework the project, the better result is always well worth the failure it took to achieve it. I have watched students that struggled in the beginning end up becoming some of the best in the class because they faced failure not as defeat, but as a challenge to do better the next time. The students who learn and achieve the most are those who have their eyes fixed on the final goal, and are eager to learn from both success and failure to become the best that they can be.