How to benefit from failures: Tips JK Rowling
Sasha Savina
ABOUT TIPS ABOUT HOW TO BUILD A CAREER AND SUCCESSin the professional field, easy to get lost. In the new section, we propose to focus on the advice of famous people and explain why they should listen. In the new issue, we turned to the recommendations of the writer Joan Rowling and reason how to put her advice into action.
Failure, no matter how big, does not define you as an individual and as a professional.
Joan Rowling, author of the equally beloved children and adults Harry Potter book series, says that her way to success was not easy: they refused to review her first book in several publishing houses before the editors of Bloomsbury were interested in her. It is not surprising that, speaking to Harvard graduates several years ago, the writer told how important it is to learn to benefit from their failures.
Advice, which may seem obvious to many, JK Rowling reinforces the story from her own experience: seven years after completing her studies, she divorced her husband and was left alone with a child in her arms, she didn’t have a job, and there was enough money for it kicked out of the house for non-payment of bills. “I will not tell you that failure is fun. It was a dark period in my life, and I couldn’t imagine what would happen to everything that the press now presents as a fabulous resolution of events,” the writer said. “Why am I talking about the advantages of failures? Just because failures helped me to separate what was unimportant. I stopped pretending to be someone I am not and directed my energy to the only thing that mattered to me. " According to her, failures helped get rid of fear and gave freedom to act as she considered necessary: "The bottom, which I reached, became the foundation on which I re-built my life." JK Rowling believes that failure helps to better understand oneself and learn one’s strengths - and this knowledge can only be obtained in a stressful situation.
In a society focused on success, it is not customary to talk about failures - although it is definitely worth doing. A recent study showed that high school students, who learned in class about the failures that famous scientists had to face before they were able to make a great discovery, learned much more willingly - this knowledge helped students understand that success is based not only on exceptional and unshakable talent . In some areas, the benefits of mistakes and failures are more obvious - for example, failed experiments and experiments help to understand the direction in which research should develop - but trial and error can be useful in other areas.
Failures are increasingly referred to as an important element of the path of success. For example, Johannes Haushofer, a professor teaching in Princeton, recently published a "summary of his failures", where he spoke about the programs for which he was not able to enroll, grants that he did not receive, and about the positions that he was not able to take.
In order to move forward, it is very important to be able to cope with negative experiences and experiences. Failures help fight fears, learn to act bolder, to understand that all this is part of the development process. It is important to realize that failure, no matter how big it is, does not define you as an individual and as a professional.
illustration: Dasha Chertanova