Learning from Failure

I'm back again! After the big move to Atlanta, I've found a job and am now ready to share my fun work stories again. :) I got a job as a preschool teacher at a Creme de la Creme (super high-end day care). It is the nicest day care anyone could imagine. The building is HUGE, with not only different rooms for all the different age groups, but also a gym, ballet studio, tennis court, basketball court, playground, water park, math room, computer room, library, art room, music room, uniform store, reading room, hair-cut salon, fish pond...you get the picture. (Everything is kid-size, but still!) The center of the building is built to look like a French town. Yeah, it's pretty nice.

Monday was my first day. Monday through Thursday I shadowed the teacher I will be replacing, and she was great to show me how things are done. Because everything there is so high quality, they also expect their teachers to do a lot, and so there was (and IS) a lot for me to learn! By Thursday I was starting to feel sufficiently overwhelmed. I started thinking, "What was I thinking that I could do this? I can't do this! I am going to let everyone down--my supervisors, my co-teachers, the kids, the kids' parents. Aaaah!!!"

As much as I wish this was a new thing for me to experience, it is not. In fact, having these feelings was like meeting with a very old and familiar friend (or should I say enemy). All these feelings accompanied me almost constantly as I tried to teach kindergarten at the KinderCare in Salt Lake. I really felt inadequate to the challenges I had there, and although no parent or supervisor complained about me (that I'm aware of), I was always worrying that I wasn't doing a good enough job for the children.

So, alas, here I was on Thursday night, feeling really inadequate and REALLY not looking forward to the companionship of my old enemy. And so I decided I needed to do something about it. So I wrote down all the negative thoughts that were going through my head and then turned to the scriptures for help. I turned to Alma 44, and in this chapter Moroni is talking to his enemy Zerahemnah about how the Lord has helped him (Moroni) overcome him (Zerahemnah). He said in verse 4,

"Now ye see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith."

From that verse, I realized that the Lord will support and keep and preserve me in my efforts to be a good preschool teacher, as long as I continue in my faith in Him. I needed to give up the fear of my inadequacies, and rather accept them as a part of life and turn to the Lord for support, having the faith that he would preserve me (and the kids) despite them. I realized that I was focusing too much on wanting to be amazing, phenomenal, incredible, to the point that I was terrified of mediocrity and paralyzed by the possibility of failure. When really I should embrace the fact that I am just learning, and therefore I probably will fail repeatedly in my efforts to be a perfect teacher. But that's okay, because as long as I stay faithful to the Lord, he will not let my failings destroy me or the children I teach. So instead of being afraid of failure, I should anticipate it and learn from it, including taking advantage of many opportunities to daily apply the Atonement in my life.

Let me tell you, mediocrity never felt so good! On Friday I had such a good day, because I anticipated making lots of mistakes and struggling to meet all the expectations my supervisor has for me. I walked into the room expecting to fail and face it head on! But I also walked into the room knowing that the Lord would support and preserve and keep me through it all, that He was watching over me and the children, that He would help me learn from my failures and not allow me to fail in any way that would really hurt the children. It was like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders.

I'm so glad I've figured this out, but now's the hard part: actually living it! I think I should pray every morning for help to learn from my mistakes, let go of the burden of perfectionism, and increase my faith that Jesus can and will make up for my weaknesses. Wish me luck!