1. Turning Failure into Success
Resources: Ten Tips for a Successful Project – Tip #4 – Be Sensitive
Facilitators should be sure to have the handout containing contact information for school and community counselors for this session.
Before the session, one Soroptimist club member or other female community member should prepare a five-minute “Story of Success through Experiencing Failure.”

2. Agenda Human Knot Activity Defining Resilience Failing Forward: A
Story of Success
through Experiencing
Failure
Putting it into Practice
Closing Activity

3. Human Knot Activity
Divide participants into groups of ten to twelve people. Additional facilitators may join the groups to make the group size equal ten to twelve people. Instruct participants:
Arrange yourselves in a circle, standing shoulder to shoulder.
Put your right hand up in the air.
Grab the hand of someone across the circle from you.
Put your left hand up in the air.
Grab the hand of a different person across the circle from you.
Ensure that everyone is holding the hands of two different people and participants are not holding hands with someone directly next to them. Inform participants:
The goal is to untangle yourselves and return to the shape of a circle without breaking the chain of hands.
You have three minutes to complete the task.
If any participants break the chain, the whole process needs to start over.
Keep time with the stopwatch and inform participants when three minutes have passed.

4. Human Knot Activity What happened?
How did you feel throughout the activity?
How did you feel when/if you had to start over?
What did you notice about the group? What went well? What went wrong?
Did how this activity turned out feel like a failure? Why? Why not?
What does experiencing a failure look like or mean to you? What are some examples?
The challenge is very difficult to accomplish within the given time, so almost every group will likely be unable to complete the task. It is important to process this experience of failure through discussion. Instruct participants to sit down with their group. A facilitator should sit with each group to lead discussion. Prompt discussion with the following questions: 
What happened?
How did you feel throughout the activity?
How did you feel when/if you had to start over? (Acknowledge feelings of frustration, anxiety, etc.)
What did you notice about the group?
What worked well?
What went wrong?
Did how this activity turned out feel like a failure?
Why?
Why not?
What does experiencing a failure look like or mean to you?
What are some examples? (Solicit two or three examples.)
After twelve minutes have passed, conclude the discussion. Summarize participant input to form a cohesive definition of experiencing failure that is specific to the group. Explain to participants:
In general, experiencing failure means experiencing an incident in life where something goes wrong or does not go according to plan. Often, we experience failure when we make mistakes that prevent us from meeting our goals or values.
Experiencing failure can be scary, but it is also natural.
Despite our feelings of fear or disappointment, it’s important to remember that we are only human. We all make mistakes and experience failure sometimes, but that does not mean that we ourselves are failures.
Feeling frustrated and experiencing failure was likely in this activity, and also likely along the way of working towards our dreams, whether related to our career or personal life.
If we know we are likely to experience failure at some point in our lives, what can we do about our fear of it? Should we avoid reaching for our dreams? Should we not try new things? No.
Instead, we can work to accept that we will likely blow it at some point, and we can focus on being resilient, which is how one reacts and responds to these setbacks that we will probably face.

5. Defining Resilience

6. If we experience a failure, we get…
Defining Resilience
If we experience a failure, we get…
THEN…
Gather participants into one group. On a board or screen, display the phrase, “If we experience a failure we get...” Instruct participants:
Think back to a time when you screwed up at something that was important to you...
It could be related to school, home, friends, or something else.
Ask participants:
What words come to mind as you think about this situation?
What feelings come to mind as you recall this situation?
On a board or screen, write (or type as you go) several participant responses in a left vertical column underneath the “If we experience failure we get...” prompt. Some of the responses might include “frustrated,” “disappointed,” “angry,” “embarrassed,” “defeated,” or other similar emotions.
After recording approximately eight words, write the word “THEN” directly underneath or to the right of the prompt. Ask participants:
How did you recover?
How else did you react?
Did anything positive come out of it?
Write down the positive words within participant responses directly underneath or to the right of the word “THEN.” Examples of positive emotions might include “brave,” “determined,” “moved on,” etc. Examples of positive reactions might include, “sought counseling,” “talked it over with a friend,” etc.

7. RESILIENCE Defining Resilience Ask participants:
Have you heard of “resilience”?
Who can tell me what it means to you?
Who else has a definition?

8. Defining Resilience Definition:
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from frustrations and to recover from setbacks. Resilient individuals adapt to change, stress or problems and are able to take things in stride. The result of this bouncing back is a feeling of of success and confidence.
On a board or screen, display the definition of the word resilience:
“Resilience is the ability to bounce back from frustrations and to recover from setbacks. Resilient individuals adapt to change, stress or problems and are able to take things in stride. The result of this bouncing back is a feeling of success and confidence.”
Ask participants:
Does this definition sound familiar?
Reference Slide 6 and point out the right column of positive words, emphasizing that the outcome of struggle can lead us to these positive feelings and experiences.
Distribute the Seven Characteristics of Resilience handout. Instruct participants to silently read the handout, or call on seven participants to each read one characteristic aloud. After the participants have read the handout, again normalize failure by saying:
We all will probably experience a failure at some point in our lives.
Provide two examples, such as not standing up to a bully or damaging a friendship.

9. Defining Resilience
Can you share an example of when you had to use one of these characteristics to recover from a bad situation or screw up?
Ask participants:
Can you share an example of when you had to use one of these characteristics to recover from a bad situation or screw up?
Explain to participants:
This is a judgment free space.
We are here to learn from each other and not judge each other.
You will not be judged for anything you share.
Call on two or three participants to share, depending on how brief the responses.
Thank participants for sharing and acknowledge the skills they used in dealing with failure. Encourage participants:
Rely on existing support systems
in your family (a parent, grandparent, older sibling or cousin),
friends you can trust,
school (a teacher, coach, guidance counselor or social worker),
community (name a few specific local organizations or community members),
religious leaders (member of the clergy, rabbi, imam, etc.), and
Soroptimist club members.
These people can help you
talk about your experience of failure,
consider what characteristics can be used to build resilience, and
think about what can be learned as a result of the experience.

10. Failing Forward A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure
Explain to participants:
As you make your way through school and adolescence, you will likely experience failure.
I know that feels scary.
But you should know we can usually learn something from the experience that makes us better.
Adults sometimes fail too.
Many of us have learned that mistakes and screw-ups are going to happen at some point.
But what is more important is how we deal with and recover from them.
That is what makes us successful in the long-term.
Inform participants:
[Name of Soroptimist club member or community member] will now present “Failing Forward: A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure.”
[Presentation: See Club Project Guide for instructions on how to prepare “A Story of Success through Experiencing Failure”]

11. Failing Forward What failure did she experience?
Which resilience characteristics did she rely on?
Can you think of examples from the story that led to something positive?
Do you think experiencing a failure can be useful?
After she is finished speaking, ask participants:
What failure did [Name of Soroptimist club member or community member] experience?
Which resilience characteristic(s) did she rely on?
Can you think of examples from the story that led to something positive?
So do you think experiencing a failure be useful?
Call on several participants to answer these questions. Then, explain to participants:
It can be uncomfortable and difficult to review our past mistakes.
The purpose of reviewing mistakes is not to get caught up in them and feel a sense of low self-worth. Remember, experiencing a failure at something does not mean that YOU are a failure.
Instead, we deal with the situation the best way we know how in the moment.
Then, after the situation is addressed, take a step back from the mistake in order to learn as much as possible from the experience.
Experiencing failure is probably inevitable, but you have the power to determine how you handle it and what you learn from it.

12. Putting it into Practice
Explain to participants:
The focus of this session is on the critical learning and growth that can come from experiencing a failure.
You will now have the opportunity to consider experiences with failure in your own lives and what came from them.
This activity might feel uncomfortable to you because you may have only looked at experiencing failure in a negative way before.
Now you will have the opportunity to practice looking at your mistakes in a way that could reveal some positive results or learning that you might have not thought about before.
Facilitators can help you with this activity.
Additional facilitators should circulate the room to provide extra support to participants as they complete the Learning from Setbacks worksheet. If participants cannot think of examples, ask prompting questions such as:
Can you think of a time when something didn’t go your way?
Have you ever…
Not prepared for a test or a presentation at school?
Tried to avoid doing something you knew was bad for you, but did it anyway?
Put yourself out there to a friend or a crush and felt rejected?
Tried to stand up to a family member or a teacher, but it didn’t work out?

13. Putting it into Practice
Think back to a few occasions in your life when you may have made mistakes
This is a judgment-free zone
Write these instances in the left column of the worksheet
Distribute a Learning from Setbacks worksheet to each participant. Instruct participants:
Think back to a few occasions in your life when you may have made mistakes or totally bombed at something (especially when trying something for the first time).
Write these instances in the left column of the worksheet.
No one will be judged for what you write; we are all human and we all make mistakes and experience failure at something.
You will not be asked to share what you write, nor will the worksheets be handed in or shared publicly.
The worksheet is for your benefit only, and no one else will get to see what you write down.
Try to be as honest and thorough as possible.

14. Putting it into Practice
Think about the negative results of these situations
Write these in the “Negative Results” column of the worksheet
For each experience of failure, instruct participants:
Think about the negative results of these situations.
The negative results usually come to mind first because that is what we tend to focus on.
Fill these in underneath the ‘Negative Results’ column of the worksheet.

15. Putting it into Practice
Think about anything positive that may have resulted from these experiences
It is OK if you are having difficulty coming up with something
Write your ideas in the “Positive Results” column of the worksheet
Next, for each experience of failure, instruct participants:
Think about anything positive that may have come about as a result of the experience.
For some mistakes it might be difficult to think of positive results, or there might not be any, and that is OK.
Try to think of anything that may have changed for the better.
List that underneath the ‘Positive Results’ column.

16. Putting it into Practice
Think about what you may have learned from these experiences
Did you use any of the characteristics of resilience?
Did the experience help you understand something better?
Did it allow you to do something differently the next time?
Did it teach you something about yourself?
Lastly, for each experience of failure, instruct participants:
Think about what you may have learned from the experience.
Did you use any of the characteristics of resilience?
Did the experience help you understand something better?
Did it allow you to do something differently the next time?
Did it teach you something about yourself?

17. Putting it into Practice
Write your answers in the “What I Learned” column of the worksheet
Write your answers underneath the ‘What I Learned’ column.
To conclude the activity, explain to participants:
It can be challenging to take an honest look at experiencing failure.
But when we get in the habit of considering what can be learned from our mistakes (like what we just practiced), we can set ourselves up for success.

18. Closing Activity
Divide participants into groups of up to ten people. Instruct participants:
Stand in a circle.
Share one word that expresses how you are feeling right now about today’s conversations and activities.
Is someone willing to go first?
Proceed around the circle until everyone has shared.
Explain that the session has ended and thank participants for their participation.

19. Think about…
How will you develop your negatives into something beautiful?

20. inspiration Looking for more to follow your dreams?
Soroptimist’s LiveYourDream.org community sent messages of support just for you.
Read them here!