Success is certainly something that we all strive for, something that we hope to achieve as often as we can. The glory of being accepted into that one college or program, or leading your sports team to victory, or anything like that is definitely a great feeling. But we can’t win them all, as they say, and sooner or later we all have to face defeat.

Recently, for instance, I achieved a score on a test that was not bad, so to speak, but not especially spectacular, and certainly not what I’d hoped for. This was a test that I’d been preparing for as best I could, and I was disappointed when I learned about the result. It wasn’t exactly a dark, soul-crushing disappointment, but it was a disappointment all the same.

What to do in cases like this? It’s inevitable that we will feel disappointed and upset after a let-down, and there’s no sense in trying to bottle those feelings up. But it’s important to reflect, instead of just being dejected. If we figure out just what we did wrong and what we need to improve on, then we can avoid those same mistakes in the future. It’s a common lesson, but we often forget about it when something especially frustrating happens.

In small incidents, it’s pretty easy to shrug it off and decide we’ll do better next time; sometimes, though, something major just goes wrong, and we’re left feeling at a dead end. Maybe we didn’t get accepted into the program or the college that we were depending on getting into. As frustrating as it may be, it’s important not to give up; there’s always a way to turn things around, and all we need to do is find it.
And in the end, it’s important just to take a deep breath and remember that things are never perfect; it’s just life, that we won’t win every time. The world will not end; life will go on, and things won’t turn out so bad after all. Missing that one opportunity, be it a college, a team, or a job, is a setback; we just have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving on. Our second-choice college may have been second-choice, but we can always distinguish ourselves there. And it might even work out better that we aren’t accepted to our first choice schools. The admission officers might see something that tells them a student wouldn’t be happy or do very well there.

So in my case, the test was a disappointment, but since I received the test back, I was able to figure out just what sections I needed to review, and I will be all the more prepared next time. After all, if we’re given a test or a score report back, there’s no reason not to use it to our advantage by finding out just what to put our effort towards. Once we’ve shored those up, we’ll be in a much better position for the future. This applies to everything — from school tests, to the ACT, and beyond.

Above all, I reasoned that what’s done is done, and there’s no sense in worrying about the score that was already given. Instead, I will try to fix it by working to do better. We can’t change the past, but we can change the future.

“I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~Thomas Edison.