Here at Stanford, we don’t do things small. We win big awards, we invent big things, we write big books, and we aim high in recruiting the best of the best of the best. Going big also means failing big, and we do plenty of that too. Although it would seem antithetical for an achievement- and success-oriented place like Stanford to be endorsing something as unsuccessful failure, we do. Most engineers will tell you that the best way to learn, and the best way to succeed, is to fail early and fail often.

There are lots of different failures. The first is “striving” failure like failing a class or an exam, or to get the job or internship you wanted, or to get into the introsem you applied for. You wanted something, you worked for it, you failed to get it.

Then there’s “thrust upon me” failure. You’re a varsity athlete and you’ve sustained an injury. You’re studying abroad or coming back from a summer working on clean water supply in a third world country and the culture shock is morphing into depression. You were minding your own business, when WHAM, you’re dealing with failure.

And finally, there’s the “bring it on myself” failure, like getting suspended after cheating on an exam. Or asking someone out even though you know they’re not interested. You ignored the voice inside trying to save you from yourself.

Each of these failures yields a different response at first, but they all lead to the same crossroads: learn or ignore; develop resilience or stagnate. Naturally, I recommend learning. Which kind of makes sense since we’re here at a place devoted to learning.

But learning is not the first thing to look for when you fail at something. It’s too soon and it’s too raw. Trying to find out what you can learn from awful experiences (whether they are dashed hopes, failures you’ve brought down on yourself, or enduring s*** that happens to you) right after they happen is simply mean-spirited — mean to yourself. Because immediately after the failure, you need to have a few real feelings.

I have a theory (full disclosure: it’s an untested theory and I’m not attempting to develop an empirical case to show it is accurate. Before I go there, I would need to hear from you that what I’m saying resonates with you). I think reacting to failure takes a path much like Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 stages of grieving (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). But with failure, the stages are: taking the academic risk, feeling strong emotions, seeking out support, reflecting and seeing what there is to learn, and finally at the end of it all, picking up the pieces and moving forward.

Just like grieving in a healthy way means going through each stage, moving through the process of developing resilience from failure means going through each stage. When you’re stuck in one, it can help to know that pursuing the next will help you move on.

But here’s the thing – you can’t develop academic resilience if you don’t take any risks, don’t stretch yourself too far, and stay in your intellectual safe zone. So the first step to building academic resilience is to start being a little more bold and daring with your decisions. Raise that hand in section and maybe find out what happens if you get tongue-tied. Take that super interesting course that you’re not necessarily going to get an “A” in. Take some chances while the stakes are still pretty reasonable. Then…

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about how to use each stage to help you develop resilience.

Next week: Feeling Strong Emotions