Question: If you keep failing in science will you ever succeed ?

Lucien Heurtier answered on 31 Mar 2023:

That’s a very good question, and I am glad you ask it. I am afraid the answer will be quite long, but it is important, so please read it until the end!

There are two main ways of failing, so let me give you two complementary answers:

First, there is exam failing. That concerns pupils, students (that may be why you ask the question), but it actually also concerns older scientists when it is about getting a job that hundreds of candidates are applying for, or obtaining some funding for your research or your engineering project/new business initiative. Believe me, even when you are older, failing doesn’t feel good, but it is part of life, and somehow you need to train yourself to accept failure, face it, and still believe in yourself to do better in the future. However, repeated failure without improvement can sometimes indicate that you are going in the wrong direction, not that you are not good.

As Einstein was saying, if one judges a golden fish by its ability to climb trees, one would always think the fish is stupid. Sometimes people can be like golden fish and try to do something they are really not meant to do. They fail repeatedly at it and are unhappy their whole life. So if you fail at something repeatedly, it is important to deeply question yourself, alone (it is good to discuss with your relatives though because sometimes they can help you figure things out, but sometimes they may as well judge you, so you want to be alone when it comes to thinking about what YOU like), in front of a mirror, to find inside your heart the answer to the question:

Is that what I really want to do?

It doesn’t matter that you failed if you really really want to do something. Because with enough passion, you can work hard, and you WILL achieve what you want. But if you fail at something that you don’t feel motivated for, then you will never improve.

In my career, I have seen artists struggling with music for years and then realise they actually liked science more. But I have also seen the opposite, scientists that finally realised they actually wanted to be painters, priests, and bakers. As a student, you may find science difficult. You may fail sometimes, and your professors and parents may say “this student is not made for science”. Maybe they are right and you just don’t like science. There would be no shame in this at all. But in the case where you do like science, if you like reading about space, if you like science fiction movies, if you like electricity, chemistry, or even biology, then please don’t listen to what people say. Work hard to prove them all wrong, and remember what I wrote you in this answer!

Actually, when I was an undergrad student, I was the last student in my class in physics… and look, today I am a physicist. Everything is possible, believe me.

Ok, now the second answer (sorry, this is becoming long!):

Failure in science, mistakes, are essential for progress. You may not know it, but Einstein was doing calculation mistakes all the time, and his wife (who was a math teacher) was constantly correcting his calculations! Sometimes he even did mistakes that made people think more about it and realise that there was something interesting to explore there. When I do mistakes, I also learn from it. When I fail at applying for funding, I get feedback to tell me why, and I learn from it.

So you can (and you should!) use failure as something that can help you progress for the future. If you fail at an exam, I would recommend that you look at it and try to understand where you failed and why. Maybe sometimes you will think “Dammit, I am f****** stupid!”, but if you think so today about the one you were yesterday, that means if you would take your exam tomorrow, you wouldn’t fail. And this will help you.

You are not stupid. Nobody is a failure and everyone has a skill, sometimes it is just meant to be found out. Believe in yourself, learn from your mistake, follow your heart and fight for what YOU want to achieve, I swear to you that you will be successful at it in one way or another.

I hope I answered your question well enough. Sorry for the very long answer! Feel free to ask more, and don’t forget…

… to vote for your favourite scientist of course 😉