Believe it or not, one way to increase our coping and adaptability skills is to focus on those times when we made a mistake, changed our mind or were just plain wrong. There are great things to be learned from life’s screw-ups! Developing a Failure Resume can allow us to reflect on these mistakes and make better decisions in the future. That’s all part of coping well in a variety of situations.
So, what would you list on your Failure Resume? Perhaps it’s the time you were working with a group to plan an event, took everything on yourself and the event wound up failing miserably because no one else had any personal buy-in. Or maybe the way you sent an email in the heat of the moment and still regret what you said, wishing you’d taken a beat before pushing “send.”
Whatever your mistakes include, try listing some along with the lessons learned from each. Developing this Failure Resume can result in some of the best possible learning opportunities.
For more on coping well in a variety of situations, tap into our How to Help Students Gain Effective Coping Skills: Self-Advocacy, Agency and Resilience Training Package.
