Every January 4th, I think back to when I was eighteen. It was the day I got my driver’s licence. Why would I remember that day? In the big scheme of things, it’s not really that important a day, after all. I don’t remember the day I started or finished university. I don’t remember the date I met some of the most influential people in my life. I don’t remember the date I migrated to Australia. Those are dates probably much more worthy of remembering.

The reason that particular date sticks in my mind is that it followed a rather rattling incident a couple of months earlier, right on the day of my eighteenth birthday, when I had my first attempt at the driver’s licence test and failed.

That was a lesson and a half. You see, I was a good driver. My driving instructor told me so every time we had a lesson, and I was already trusted to drive my family around every time there was need to get in the car for something. In addition, every week for months, I’d driven to my piano lessons because, even though part of the journey was on a freeway, my father trusted me to be able to get there safely.

I don’t remember what I did wrong in the test, but I do recall it was a string of trivial mistakes – probably due to my nervousness on the day – that brought me undone. What I do remember is the shock of failure. I was used to succeeding, even when I didn’t have full confidence in my ability. Enough knowledge, and a bit of luck had always got me through in the past.

And now this. I actually could not believe I’d booked my driving test on the day of my eighteenth birthday, and the examiner had actually failed me. The next morning, I woke up and realised with a weight in my gut that the disappointment that had dogged my dreams overnight was not going to fade away. It was real. It all seemed so unjust, so unnecessary. Part of me wondered if I got a fail just because they were trying to teach me a lesson, being too eager, booking the test on my birthday. In hindsight, it’s easy to recognise I was merely going through a very natural stage in the aftermath of failure: denial.

Of course it could not be about me, I thought. Of course there has been a mistake. But I was wrong. It was about me. There was no mistake.

What I learned pretty much immediately after passing my second driving test attempt, on the 4th of January 1982, was that after another couple of months’ experience, I was actually a much better driver. I was safer on the road than before. But there was more. Not getting my licence on my first attempt could well have saved my own life, and perhaps others’.

So I try to remember this every time I fail. It never feels good. It’s like a kick in the guts. But the important thing is to keep moving forward. Learning never stops, and the most vital learning we do is that which comes out of mistakes and failure. Listen to feedback, think, practice, improve, and it’s highly likely success will follow.

And so I guess the thing that makes me remember the 4th of January is not the previous failure, but how glorious it felt to succeed. It was such a good feeling that every year, the date jumps out at me, and will not let me forget.