Dust yourself down

AH, the F-word. That fractious, tetchy, emotional little word that pops up again and again in school-gate conversations.

It feels like fear of it is increasing not only among young people but even more so, perhaps, among their anxious, hovering parents. We're talking Failure. Not my precious little darling! Imagine the long-term psychological damage! Certificates for all, please! But should we be encouraging this cushioning from one of the most fundamental fuels of a successful life? Brisbane Girls Grammar doesn't think so. It's introduced a course for first-year high school students that teaches them the importance of risk-taking, how to build resilience and, crucially, not seeing failure as a setback but as a way to grow.

Educators are waking up to the fact that a terror of failing is becoming a constraining problem, particularly among girls. England's Wimbledon High School recently held a "Failure Week" for its female students. The emphasis was on the value of having a go as opposed to playing it safe and possibly achieving less. Headmistress Heather Hanbury wanted to show "it is completely acceptable and normal not to succeed at times in life ... the girls need to learn how to fail well - and how to get over it ... fear of failing can be really crippling and stop the girls doing things they really want to do."

Girls can be so easily crushed; stymied by those particularly female traits of perfectionism, lack of self-esteem, hatred of criticism, fear of speaking out, fear of making a fool of oneself. But failure can set anyone back. I've become inured to it as I've aged simply because I've become so used to it. From cupcakes never turning out right to abandoned novels that never took off, phones not ringing after interviews and most recently, flinching little moments of failure in parenting ("Can you go away again, mummy?" declared one of the little darlings after I'd returned recently from a business trip.) But what I've learnt - slowly, painfully, angrily, beautifully - is that failure's a gift. In some way. Always. Because it's never the end of the world; you're always learning something in the process and it's often veering you onto a different, better, stronger path.

As Henry Ford said, "Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently." If we've got the courage to pick ourselves up and try and try again, well, that's where magnificence comes into play, those moving life-narratives we all respond to.

Take Winston Churchill. Ranked last in his primary school class, his headmaster wrote: "He is a constant trouble to everybody... He cannot be trusted to behave himself anywhere." Only on his third attempt did Churchill pass the entrance exam to Sandhurst. But crucially, he was always a risk-taker. And by nature, those are the people most comfortable with failure. "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts," he said.

The test of a person's character is in how they react to failure. Over these past two weeks in London we've seen tears, bewilderment and blame after losses - even after coming second. I was in England for Andy Murray's defeat in the Wimbledon final; it felt like the entire nation was watching, fervently wishing for triumph. They needed this. His shining, heartfelt speech in defeat was beautifully self-deprecating and generous to his victor. In that moment the dour Scot became endearingly human to me; he was ennobled by his grace.

I could suddenly see the arc of a splendid narrative. Remember, in the sting of defeat people are watching. It's then that we empathise - for we've all failed - and it's then that there's the potential to gauge the human spirit at its most moving and magnificent. By all means fail, just don't become a lesser person because of it. Pick yourself up. Show us your courage. Endure. We all crave that narrative, if not in ourselves then in others. It's human nature.