"Failure is always something that we use to build into the story of ourselves and who we are.”
Bridgette Martin Hard has learned a lot about the value of failure through her own life experiences. As a psychologist researching growth versus fixed mindsets, the professor of the practice of Psychology and Neuroscience has seen firsthand how students' beliefs about intelligence and ability can hold them back.
"I tell students that we hold both of these mindsets in our heads at all times. You're not one or the other, and different situations can drag you in different directions,” Hard says. "I want students to be aware of when thoughts of 'I'm just not good enough' are popping into their heads."
A pivotal moment in her own journey came during her freshman year of college, when she took an advanced writing course. Hard had always been praised for her writing skills, so she felt confident going into the class. However, her first paper came back covered in red ink, with a grade much lower than anything she had received before.
"The amount of red ink all over this paper, and then the grade, which was lower than any grade I'd ever received in my entire life...,” she says. “I was in tears, freaking out thinking, ‘how did this happen?’"
Devastated, Hard decided to meet with the professor to understand where she had gone wrong. The professor helped her see that his role was to push her writing to the next level, and that’s what he was conveying through the corrections and grades.
Though it was difficult at first, Hard took her professor’s advice to heart. She started giving herself more time to revise and refine her papers, applying the same level of scrutiny that her professor had. Over the course of the semester, Hard's writing steadily improved. By the end she felt she had become a much stronger writer.
Years later, Bridgette ran into the same professor and thanked him for that transformative experience: “I told him, ‘I’m a writer now, and I really love what I do, and I appreciate everything you taught me.’”
Hard, who teaches one of the most popular classes on campus, often tells students that failure always becomes an important part of their story.
“No matter what form it takes, failure is always something that we build into the story of ourselves and who we are,” she says. “These failures become our most defining moments, the events that ultimately shape who we are.”