Failure is a part of life. We learn from our mistakes at times and sometimes we just don’t know what went wrong. By accepting failure, you are accepting yourself and your situation as a part of life. It’s a growth opportunity but it’s not a measure of your future or self-worth. Although certain factors are beyond your control, failure and success always go hand in hand — success typically comes from previous failures. Embracing failure can lead to success down the road.
Learning to Let Go
1. Stop looking at failure as a measure of self-worth.
Failing can lead to disappointment and sadness. Maybe you expected success or you feel embarrassed that the situation didn’t exactly work out; however, failure as a person is not a measure of your worth. You ‘re not stupid as you failed one exam. You ‘re not weak because you’ve lost one game of karate. Use this moment not to give up, but to push forward.
Believe you are flexible to failure and can recover quickly. Your harshest critic is often yourself.
See your self-worth by being able to keep on trying rather than giving up.
While at one point you might not be good, that doesn’t mean you are bad at all.
2. Focus on what you do well.
You may feel like there is nothing good about you after the failure. But in reality, everyone have something unique which they do well. Some are good listeners. Some are handy to fix things. Some of them are reliable. Certain are artistic.
Use what you’ve been doing well to your advantage in the future. While it is necessary to improve things about yourself, it is also important to keep the good things strong.
Avoid overly negative thinking by concentrating yourself and your life on the positive aspects. Think of three things going well in this present moment.
3. Seek advice from those you trust.
Don’t let other people determine your value. Avoid listening to negative people or those who are cheating on you to get what they want. When you’re looking for guidance, trust those who care and are a reliable part of your life.
Some friends or family may come forward with healthy criticism. Avoid disregarding it but also ask them to concentrate on both the positive and the negative. Consider saying, “Thank you so much for the advice. I ‘m going to take it to heart. I was also wondering, from your perspective, what are some things that I did well?”
By opening yourself up to others about your failure, you’ll feel less burdened or alone. Letting go of your negative feelings can be a very important step. Chances are these people will also have plenty of stories about their own shortcomings.
4. Embrace your limits.
The only person you can take control of is yourself. You may have had to lose a match after accidentally injuring yourself in advance. You may have submitted a team project that did not meet expectations because one member of your team did not do the work. Because of a lack of resources your company may have failed to reach its goal of serving more than 500 clients. You can better understand how external things can impact your life by learning to distinguish what you can change, and what you can’t.
Take that as a chance to focus on what you can do.
For example, failure to get to work on time may have been out of your control due to extreme weather circumstances. Yet failure to get to work on time routinely could have been within your control due to time mismanagement.
Consider writing down two lists, side by side, when viewing a recent failure. One side includes things you can change concerning yourself or your situation. The other side includes the outside forces which you can’t control.
5. Define failure as temporary.
Failure is a loss, but avoid seeing the loss as permanent. Failure is going to happen at different points in our lives. These points are temporary moments or small snapshots on a larger scale than your month, year, or lifetime.
Seeing failure as temporary will seem less overwhelming. It’s going to feel like a small hill rather than a huge mountain.
When something is temporary, it means that it is more likely to adapt or change. Failure can thus become a positive thing as times change.
6. Learn to anticipate failure.
Accept that at some point this can and will happen. This doesn’t mean that because failure exists, the best way to avoid it is not to try your best. Anticipating failure means that you’ve considered different scenarios. It means you ‘re flexible about what’s going on — whether you succeed or fail.
Think of any situation as to the possibility of failure. See it as a way of motivating people to be more organized, thorough and engaged.
Consider the scenarios you both win as well as fail in. Imagine how you could have reacted. Then plan accordingly. Focus your energy on how to be positive, and remain motivated regardless of the outcome.
Making backup plans can help you avoid anxiety about failures. If you can anticipate failure and have a plan B and C then with less fear you can face failure prospects more successfully.
Finding Inspiration
1. Use failure as a source of inspiration.
Failure can sometimes make you work harder, and give you the motivation to push yourself further. Use every mistake as a way to build strength and courage. You will become more comfortable with it as part of your life and work, by embracing failure.
Think of the harshest challenge you’ve overcome. Use this as a motivation to get over what’s going on now.
Use fault as future wisdom. If you look back from now on in a week, month, or year, you may feel stronger for having faced your failures.
Recall this as a way of embracing failure: “It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.”
2. Learn from mistakes.
Who at some point in their lives doesn’t make mistakes? While errors are things that do happen, what matters is what we learn from them. We can’t take the past back but that doesn’t mean history will repeat itself.
Try to think of the errors as experiments. You won’t know if something works or not, unless you try it. And if you’re trying, and this is a failure, now you’ve got more information going forward. Place the importance on what you have learnt, rather than what you have learned. You become more informed about what might work in the future if something doesn’t work.
Find people to back you up. Hear their advice regarding what to learn from this experience. If you are on a sports team, there may be helpful advice from your coach and fellow players on what to do.
Think about how many well-known businesspeople, inventors, artists, and scientists all failed before they succeeded. They learnt and kept going from their mistakes.
3. Focus on how success and failure go hand in hand.
If you never attempted then you’re never successful. For many successes perseverance is key. Through sheer luck few people succeed. Often you have to work hard and not let others determine your fate. While your “success” measures may not always be achievable, that doesn’t automatically mean you failed.
Many athletes, scientists, and business tycoons are all going to say the same thing to you: failure is part of what makes you successful.
You’ll learn more from the tough failures than from the simple successes. Those failures will actually make you stronger and more resilient.
Prepare for the next time
1. Focus on the future, not the past.
If you see failure as an opportunity to get closer to your goal, it becomes something to be anticipated and expected. If you are not failing in all likelihood, then you are probably not pushing yourself enough.
Be forward-looking, instead of dwelling on the past. While the past can help you understand what to do better, fixing on past mistakes will dissuade you from seeing future possibilities.
Don’t allow fear of failure to determine your future destiny. Believe the willingness to try new stuff and learn from it will help you to grow in the future.
See your targets for the future as challenges. You’ll probably find greater reward when you’re doing something tough rather than easy.
2. Evaluate what worked, and what did not.
It shouldn’t be about your character flaws to evaluate what happened. Take an objective look at what happened, and focus next time on what you can do better. Use your collaborators, teammates, friends, and family to help you get a different perspective, depending on the situation.
Review the challenges before the failure even occurred. Let’s say you have had a team project with three other people, for example, and this project ended up failing to meet the expectations of your teacher or company. Evaluate how the team could have communicated better. Determine the missing aspects of the project, and how they could have been improved. Evaluate outside forces your team was unable to control.
Avoid blaming yourself for all of the problems, or blaming others for a mistake in which you participated. Be respectful of yourself and others whatever the success or failure.
This review process should help in preventing or reducing future mistakes. While it might not be easy or fun to find solutions to your mistakes, it will help you prepare for next time.
3. Own your own mistakes.
Accountability for your actions is an admirable quality at work and in life. In a difficult situation it means you embrace your own part. It will help others to see you as a flexible and resilient person to take ownership of what you can do to improve or change.
It shows you mature by taking ownership of your own faults.
You may lose out on an opportunity to move forward with your work, team, or situation if you do not admit wrongdoing. Although admitting fault can be uncomfortable, it can be worse if you avoid doing so.
Use GRIT Strategy
1. Have Guts
So be brave. Take chances. Risk means chance of failure. To do things outside of what’s easy, or your comfort zone, you need guts.
Asking someone out for a date takes up guts. Don’t give up because someone says no — ask someone else you love!
Starting your own business takes on guts. Small enterprises and start-ups run a high risk of failure. But it might also lead your product to the next best thing.
2. Be Resilient.
Being resilient signifies being able to bounce back from failure. You might feel yourself depressed or upset. You might just want to give up. But you look at the brighter side with resilience, since you have these three traits:
- Excellence. You are striving to do better.
- Confidentiality. You believe in each other.
- Creativity. You have a plan for how to make things better.
3. Take Initiative.
You’re forcing yourself to do something that is hard when you take the initiative. If you’re on a team project and once you’ve failed, you can take the initiative to make improvements and admit errors. That way, you are a leader for yourself and others instead of beating yourself up about the situation.
Find out what better you can do by asking others about your strengths, and where room for improvement is.
Be an aid to those around you. You’ll feel less like a failure when you are helping others.
4. Be persistent.
Persistence is key. Life comes down to trial and error. Whether you have tenacity in your studies, career or personal life, it will make you stronger and more wiser for the failures ahead. It does mean you ‘re not giving in.
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