People who want to become PAs experience a catch-22 of sorts: In order to ultimately succeed, you often have to fail, but experiencing failure can inhibit your future successes. Failure can cause feelings of helplessness, inadequacy, and demoralization, which can make you lose faith in your capabilities; when this happens, your ultimate goal may seem further out of reach, and you might even start to believe that your success is out of your control.
Luckily, there are research-based findings on the best ways to overcome setbacks and position yourself for overall success.
Be Open to Feelings Associated With Failure
It’s no secret people often ignore their feelings, especially when said feelings are stressful or otherwise unpleasant. Unfortunately, according to research, one of the best ways to learn from mistakes is to do the last thing you want—to embrace the negative feelings associated with failure. Throughout the PA process you will definitely experience failure at some point.
Common advice is that you shouldn’t dwell on your mistakes or beat yourself up after you fail, but this advice is somewhat contradicted in the current literature. People who allow themselves to feel their emotions regarding failure try harder to correct their mistakes, according to a study in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making; a person who makes excuses and ignores his or her failures fares less well when it comes to learning from past mistakes. Our goal is improvement and growth, right?
Without making yourself feel terrible, realize that sometimes bad things happen, and to avoid them again in the future, you have to try harder. You can have self-compassion while still pushing yourself to succeed and motivating yourself to avoid similar failure in the future. Whether it’s a tough semester or being placed on a waitlist, most feelings of failure come from multi-factorial reasons. Use the self-reflection from those experiences to help you achieve success moving forward. Look for the good in the situation coming from those failure feelings. With a tough class where you didn’t get your desired grade, maybe you learned some more effective study techniques. By gaining a waitlist spot, that means your application was on target to get an interview, and it’s not a no. Find the positives and cling to those.
Let Your Feelings Spark Action
After you experience your feelings surrounding failure, get to work; break down the failure into two categories: aspects that were in your control and aspects that were not. Review your lists and see if you find any items improperly categorized. Sometimes, things that seem out of your control are actually not and vice versa. Can you improve your skills, planning, knowledge, etc. to take control of aspects that were previously deemed out of your control? With the list that remains (it might be unchanged from your first iteration), focus on all of the parts of a failure that are under your control.
When you believe you can’t change the outcome of a situation, you often feel paralyzed, helpless, inadequate, etc. Conversely, the more you feel in control of a problem, the more likely you are to be motivated to tackle future challenges, according to research published in Core Psychiatry. In the event that you recognize things you could have done differently, take ownership of that and use it to spark change. Resolve to take small steps towards making changes in future situations, even if they seem like small things. Going back to the grades example - perhaps you will gain a self-awareness of recognizing when you’re struggling and instead of continuing to drown in the material, create an action plan to reach out for help from an earlier point.
Talk It Out With Like-Minded Individuals
Talking about failure may seem nerve-racking, but it’s one of the best ways to overcome setbacks and position yourself for future successes. Call someone you trust and allow him or her to help you process the loss while feeling supported.
It can also be helpful to remind yourself that you’re not alone in your experience. For example, recently, Clara Jones, BSN, RN, posted the following on her Instagram:
I wasn’t an A student by any means. I wasn’t the type that didn’t study but aced my exams. I was the type that even though I busted my ass, I still failed some exams and barely made C’s on some of them. I failed my first skills evaluation for inserting a Foley catheter! Needless to say, I cried and thought nursing wasn’t for me. I missed most of my IV starts for the first couple of months. But let me tell you, these things make you want to quit and sulk, but how you respond to them challenges you and makes you BETTER …”
Failure is a normal part of learning and progression. Surround yourself with people who are successful despite their past mistakes. Talk openly about your shortcomings and listen to others when they do the same. If you’re not already part of The Pre-PA Club on Facebook, it’s a great community of people in the same position as you.
At The End of The Day
Unfortunately, the catch-22 of becoming a PA doesn’t stop when you get into PA school, or even when you graduate and start working in the field. Even after years of overcoming failures and learning an immense amount of information, you’ll still be subject to the unexpected. Medicine is always evolving and patients are all unique. As confident as you are, you’ll never be fully prepared.
The techniques above are a good start for overcoming adversity on your journey to PA, but they are by no means exhaustive. If you want to become a PA, it’s important to know that your career choice will never be easy, but with the right attitude, it will be more than worth the challenges it presents.
