FEBRUARY 17, 2022
Let’s face it. We all fail sometimes or the other in our lives. And when we fail, we feel broken down, negative, and sad.
We don’t think about dealing with that failure; all we think about is giving up and running away from that situation. It hurts a lot.
But running away is not what makes people successful. Running away does not give people the happiness and satisfaction they seek.
We have to change our approach and perspective towards failures. We have to learn how to deal with failures in our lives because failure will be there. We will miss some goals and targets. Does it mean we will give up every single time? No! We have to get up, learn how to deal with failures, and become successful.
But, how can we learn how to deal with failures? That’s what we will understand in today’s blog post! Keep reading!
Why should we change the way we look at failures?
We all have one unsaid rule in life: “Don’t talk about failures.”
We glorify the incredible successes that we have but often put away the failures we encounter. We think, “Failure is bad. Success is good.”
But the problem is, having this kind of mindset will not help us learn how to deal with failures. With this mindset, we won’t be able to tap into the incredible learning opportunity that failure has.
Yes, failure is one of the best learning opportunities in life! Even more than success! When we succeed, we have the attitude that we did everything right, and that’s good. But when we fail, we have to reflect on where we went wrong, which will teach us what not to do, which is incredibly important.
That’s why we have to change our attitude towards failures and start learning from them.
Failing is okay. It is not bad. But not learning from it is. Let’s start learning!
What exactly are failures?
Before we move on to learn how to deal with failures, let’s define failure and change the way we look at it.
The dictionary meaning of failure is “Lack of success.” And while that is true, it doesn’t show us the whole picture.
By thinking of failure as the lack of success, we believe that success and failure are separate entities. In reality, failure is a part of the process that leads to success.
We have one primary goal that we wish to achieve. In that, there are multiple various milestones/deadlines that we have in mind. And failure is just falling short of our expectations and not reaching the right destination or not being able to get to that milestone in time.
This does not mean that there is a lack of success. This means that there’s a temporary delay or diversion in the path to success.
With that positive mindset towards failure, we’ll be able to make the best of it.
How to Deal with Failures?
The answer to how to deal with failures is way simpler than it seems. It just requires you to do three things! That’s right!
Let’s start of the list on how to deal with failures!
- Experience the emotion and the failure.
When we are in that moment when we’ve failed, we feel the worst in the world. We think that it’s all over. We believe it’s the end of our life!
And if we try to rationalize in that heavily emotional situation, we’ll instead create worse conditions for ourselves. So, you don’t have to do anything first. You only have to feel and experience these emotions. The more you deny them, the harder it will become for you to learn from this failure.
Whatever sadness and negativity you are feeling, let it all out. Experience it. And when you come back into a rational and calmer state, we’ll move on to the next point. - Trackback and reverse engineer.
Now that you are rational, it is time for you to reflect and learn from this failure. We’ll go back to the definition of failure, which was falling short of our expectations.
We are quick to jump to conclusions and say, “Oh! I did my best! But I somehow failed.” With that quick conclusion, we will not learn the best from our failures. The place that we have to begin with is from the goal itself.
Ask, “Were my expectations right in the first place?” That’s the starting point, and sometimes, we get it wrong there itself. Let’s rule that out and then move forward.
If your expectations themselves were wrong, you know what the problem is, and that’s the reason you failed. That puts closure to your failure, and now you’re ready to move on and set the right expectations and goals.
If your expectations were correct, then ask more questions, reflect, and find the reason behind falling short of your expectations. - Use Failure as an opportunity for realignment.
Did you know that a rocket is 95% off-course? It is constantly going off-track and then course-correcting back to the right path.
That’s what we have to do as humans as well.
Failures are those reminders and checkpoints that give us the chance to realign and course correct so that we don’t end up at the wrong destination.
Realign with your purpose. You can do that by understanding and writing down:- What was the situation? Write down what happened objectively and impartially. Don’t mix your emotions into it.
- Then, write down what are the actions that you took.
- Identify the mistakes that you made in those actions.
- What could you have done better?When you answer these four questions, you will understand precisely at what point you went off-track and will be able to solve the problem from there. With that, failure will become a success accelerator for you!
Conclusion
We are often stuck in the past because we don’t put closure to all the past events. We feel that there are some things that we could have done better, and that creates lots of guilt within us.
By taking out the time for reflection and learning, you will put closure to the past and move on with the lessons you’ve learned.
You can’t change the past. You can only learn and move on. Do that and get started. That’s how you deal with failures and make it a growth accelerator instead of a roadblock.
Partnering in your success, happiness, and growth,
Prabhsimrat