On the Slopes of Growth: The Stress of Failure & Building Resilience
After this past session break, I was talking to one of the Spark learners about how he went skiing during his time between sessions. I shared with him about how I had tried skiing for the very first time - and how it went completely terribly.
No matter how hard I tried to “pizza” I tipped down over and over again. My knees went sideways. I couldn’t figure out how to get myself back up again. I’d stand, wobble, slide, and BOOM! Down again. What should have taken minutes took nearly an hour because I was inching my way down this little hill in a half-laughing, half-crying mess.
I really wanted to quit and just go back inside the warm lodge. I got frustrated and really stressed! I watched all of these other skiers and snowboarders whizz past me with ease, while I felt completely stuck and incompetent. I started to spiral. Was I going to be in someone's way? What if I can’t get down at all? Am I going to be stuck on this frigid hill forever? Why am I so bad at this? Just like the ice under my skis, my confidence started to slip out from under me and the panic of falling began to morph into this stress of feeling like I was a failure.
But when I told the story of my repeated icy falls and bruised ego to this Spark learner, he simply looked at me and said:
“But Miss Caroline, that is just a part of practicing! So you learn!”
Of course! That’s exactly what we are all about here at the Village School!
There I was, complaining about my failures, when one of our learners gently reminded me of the mindset we work so hard to cultivate. This Spark learner’s comment had me completely reframe the way I was thinking. Failing wasn’t proof that I couldn’t ski. I was proof that I was learning, and picking myself back up again was building resiliency, even in the face of adversity.
At the Village School, we embrace failure because we believe it is an important and necessary part of growth. We let learners fail.
We talk a lot about how failure is essential to learning. How it can give us valuable feedback. How failure can even be artful. And how it can be really hard for caregivers and guides to allow a learner to fail, without stepping in too quickly. In a world where failure is often branded as danger, and something to avoid at all costs, it can feel intimidating to allow learners to struggle. Failure is inherently stressful! Approaching something that you might fail at can feel a lot like slipping and sliding down that hill uncontrollably, impending that big crash.
But when we remove the opportunity for a learner to fail, or when we cushion or eliminate every stressor or risk, we may unintentionally send the message - the thing they fear must be truly dangerous. That the discomfort must be something they cannot handle. And that message can actually increase anxiety and stress.
When learners instead face what they would rather avoid, a hard project, a looming deadline, a new skill, or a difficult conversation, they begin to learn that stress and failure is survivable. And even more than that, they learn that they are capable. Capable of the task at hand, and capable of managing their own stress. They build resiliency!
Throughout the learning design of the Village School, learners are faced with many opportunities to be challenged, to revise, to fail, and to grow. Guides and peers support them through the process - but do not remove the challenge or rescue them from the uncomfortable moments, because these moments of discomfort are where the most growth can happen.
So this session in Health and Wellness, we are focusing on how to help support our learners to work through failure and stress, and how to develop healthy coping strategies. We talk about the difference between stress and anxiety, what stress feels like in our body and how to identify it, and offer tools they can use such as mindful breathing techniques or challenging and reframing thoughts.
Failure, and stress is an unavoidable part of life. A safe, supportive environment to fail, work through stress, and to reflect is what allows learners to build true confidence. Not the confidence that says “I will always succeed,” but the confidence that says, “Even if I struggle, I can handle it.”
Just like skiing, learning and doing something new or challenging can feel wobbly and uncomfortable. There might be sideways knees and icy patches. There will be moments of doubt.
But as the Spark learner told me. Failing, and falling, is learning. And part of that learning is discovering you can get back up!
So let them wobble! Let them fall! Let them feel the nerves that come with trying something hard! And let them learn how to stand back up again. Because resilience is not built by avoiding the hill, but built on the way down.
