11 Ways To Deal With Failure

Dictionary meaning of Failure is “Lack of success in doing or achieving something” and Failure in life means the state of not achieving the desired or planned objective. 

What can come to your mind as you hear the words "You are not successful in your life"? What you are, you are good for nothing, and you should give up. 

Failure And Life

William D. Brown has said well, “Failure is an event, never a person.” This means if you try your hand at something, the desired results are not achieved immediately. While doing something, you understand its process and gradually you start seeing its results. Initially, you may not be successful but it doesn’t mean that you are unsuccessful or you are a failure. It may just happen that this journey from failure to success takes some time.

Failure and life go together. There is hardly anyone who has never faced failure in his life. Many times people lose their power due to their repeated failure and are unable to overcome it. But always remember one thing that failure is the first step towards success and whoever has understood this, will convert his failure into success. 

Being a human, one can face failures in his/her life and the feeling of it will sometimes lead to negativism and self-criticism in us. 

Ways To Deal With Failures In Life

The truth is that failure is not the end; it’s the beginning of success. This is a sign that more effort is needed to get the results we desired in our life. If one wants to turn his failure into success, one has to know the shortcomings and mistakes, which have done in past and do not repeat them again. 

If you are struggling to cope with failure and are looking for success, then below are some suggestions about what we should do.

1. Don’t Suppress Your Feelings

You got hurt when you fail, sometimes a little, sometimes more. Different emotions come to mind with failure like sadness, anger, anxiety, embarrassment, shame; these are just a few names of feelings.

If you keep these feelings suppressed, maybe it can negatively affect your health, relationships and your future success. Not only this, if you do not accept how you feel at that time, then at an unforeseen time it can later make you volatile, negative, irritated and unhappy.

If seen, feeling unsuccessful is a source of motivation which gives you a chance to find better solutions and rectify the mistake and help you work harder.

2. It’s Not Personal

It is very important to separate the failure from one's own identity and if taken it personally then it will hurt your self-esteem and self-confidence which can be a hindrance in your progress. 

Do not be disappointed, remember those great people, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Walt Disney is the name of few, who did not give up despite successive failures and eventually succeeded. 

It is important to accept failure, but not personally because it will help you identify what you have to focus on So that you can face the situation in a new way for success in future. 

3. Accept What Happened And Responsibility For Your Role 

The first thing you should do after failing is to accept your failure. Don’t try to ignore or hide it because what has happened cannot be changed now. If you accept failure and decide to do something for it, then you start learning how to overcome failure.

Most people blame others for their failure and this means that they are not honest with themselves. However, doing so will make you feel better and remove your fear of failure for a short time only. But taking responsibility for your mistake will help you in the long course. 

Believe it when you recognize your own mistakes then you will be able to do better next time. 

4. Analyze What Went Wrong

You can’t change what happened, but by analyzing it you can definitely find out what went wrong and where it went wrong. This will also give you an understanding of what has been done and what has not been done so that you can start with a new approach.

After analysis, you can improve your future performance by modifying your strategy, identifying your weak points and preparing yourself and at the same time, it will boost your confidence more.

5. Failure Gives Opportunity To Learn

If you are willing to learn from failure, then there is no better teacher than failure. Failure gives us the opportunity to question what I am doing wrong and when we change our perspective of seeing failure, things start working.

That's why try to understand what your failure is trying to teach you. Now, look at the failure from a different perspective.  For example, what changes need to be made in your process so that it works?

You couldn’t get better without trying and failing. The most important thing is that the attitude of learning from failure will make your thinking creative and you will get away from negativity and apathy.

6. Don’t Dwell On It

Repeated recall of failure will not change the result and the worst is to take it to heart. By doing this, its results become more intense and it hinders your progress. So stop thinking about your failure and focus on the future. 

7. Map Out Plans To Proceed

When failure occurs it is very difficult to convince oneself to move forward. But by repeating your failure in your mind, again and again, you will do nothing good. You can’t change what went wrong, but now you can positively make a plan about what and how to do it next, which will turn your failure into success.

Split your plan into small steps and work on it step-by-step. By doing this you will know what you did not do last time or what was wrong, you can improve it and turn it into success.

8. Find Support And Inspiration 

Everyone needs support and inspiration in grief and trouble. In such a situation, you can talk to someone close to you who understands you. It is helpful to talk to your close one. Otherwise, you should talk to the person with whom you want to learn and want to be like them. 

Nowadays, many articles and Videos of Motivational speakers will be found on this issue in online forums. It may not be about your existing challenge, but it will help to bring your approach and mindset back to optimism.

9. Don't  Fear, Face It

If you have always tried to protect yourself from failure and if, sometimes you fail, and then it feels very scary. But if you have failed now then why be afraid?

We have heard in many advertisements, movies or stories that, “Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai”. Get out of your comfort zone and start building yourself again by gathering your broken pieces. Over time you will learn that failure is not as bad as you believed. 

10. Be Positive And Optimistic

When faced with failure, you are overwhelmed by fear and self-doubt. Failure brings that black cloud of negativity with which you question yourself and start doubting your ability. For this, positive thoughts are the last thing on your mind that will help in salvage and return to normal. 

This process will take time. If you want to facilitate and speed up this process, then you have to fight the negativity of your mind and think realistic thoughts about failure like:

• I can deal with failure.
• I can learn from failure.
• Failure is a sign that challenges me to work harder.

Nothing can inspire you except your success story and your own experience. So, look back and reflect on your own life, how you faced past failures and succeeded.

11. Try It Again

If you let the failure dominate you, it hurts your self-esteem. But if you want, it helps you rebuild and start your journey again. Failure is not the end of your dreams, goals and aspirations but the power of failure motivates you to pursue your goals.

When you start again, you may not reach your goal immediately, but by doing so you will definitely get a high level of resiliency. 

Someone has beautifully said, “Failures are part of life. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn you’ll never change.”