Last Updated on February 27, 2024
Failure can never be avoided. It’s a sort of preset circumstance in our lives wherein intended or desired objectives are not met. It can often be devastating when it occurs. However, somehow it makes us stronger in the end because we learn from that experience and it gives us tougher bearings to face the same situation.
Most of us may not want to even think about it, but the fact is that at some point in our lives we will always have to face failure. The consequences of this may result in emotional, physical, and mental damage. But the extent of these consequences will be based on how we cope with the situation. In order to help with just that, here are some valuable tips on how you can deal with failure.
Don’t Panic
One of our common reactions to failure is to panic right away. For many, it’s an automatic cognitive response to the situation, but this should never become a habit. For obvious reasons, getting into panic mode can result in making the wrong decisions, using up your precious energy, and causing unnecessary stress. Try to channel your emotions to motivate yourself to get back up and make things right the second time.
Never Play the Blame Game
We cannot deny the fact that we tend to blame others for our failure. In this situation, we tend to wash our hands and act as if we aren’t involved in our personal mistake. If you logically think about it, that actually sounds silly. Blaming others for our personal wrong doings is very shallow. The first step is to admit that you’re wrong. If you were right, this failure would’ve never happened to you.
Know Ones’ Limits
Failure is never an option. Whether we realize it or not, we have the control over choosing the right decision and reducing the chance of another occurrence or experiencing a déjà vu of the same failure. If we can appraise ourselves to understand what we can and cannot do, we become more realistic and avoid doing something that we can’t do in the first place.
This may be a bit contradictory to the above but there is nothing wrong with trying new things to discover new talents/skills in ourselves, even if it means going beyond your limit. We have to remember that playing it safe all the time can make our lives boring because we only do things that are within our comfort zone. Moreover, we have to remember that taking risks has greater rewards.
Avoid Comparing Yourself to Others
One thing that we can all be sure of is that we’re all different. We may have some similarities but we can never be exactly like someone else. Based on this notion, we should not compare ourselves to others because we are all unique.
We should not take others’ misery as a tool to uplift ourselves in the same way as we should not degrade ourselves when we see the success of others. When we experience failure, we should never think that other people had it worse to make ourselves feel better. We should also not pity ourselves for failing when others have succeeded. What we have to do is to suck it up and move on. Of course it’s not easy but that’s the only way to go.
Distract Yourself
Whenever we fail, we should always distract ourselves a bit in order to find relief from the emotional distress. It’s good to separate ourselves from the negative vibes so that we can collect ourselves and start over. We should have a few drinks and hang-out with friends to eliminate the chance of getting really depressed from the failure which can lead to insanity.
It is always good to laugh off the experience of failure, but we should never extend the distraction too long because we might lose our focus on what’s really important – starting over and making things right the second time.
Learn from the Experience
The most effective way of dealing with failure is to evaluate the situation and looks at some lessons that can be learned. What we learn will be the tools for us to find success the next time we try doing the thing in which we failed. It’s comforting to know that we got something out of a bad experience. Remember what Thomas Edison said: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ”
Think Positively
A very good way to cope with failure is to stay positive despite the bad experience. Failure isn’t a dead end, but a new beginning. Like Henry Ford said: “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time wiser.” Additionally, always think that there is no limit on how many times we can try to turn the failure around.
Trying to stay positive may be hard for most of us, but we should keep in mind that if we do otherwise, it will not make things better and even make it a lot worse than it really is.
Don’t Mind What Others Think
Having to experience failure is already bad enough, but having people look down on us because of it, makes it even worse. This brings us to another tip; ignore the bad aura from others. Life is to short to worry about what others think of you. Who gives a damn. Seriously. They’ve never walked in your shoes and you’ve never walked in theirs. End of story.
Stay in the Present
Having fear of failure may be rooted in what happened in the past and the possibility that it might happen in the future. If we always remember a failure, it will always make us afraid that we might repeat the same mistakes. The same goes for the future, if we always worry about failing in the future, we will always have anxiety. From these two instances, we’re creating a fearful atmosphere wherein we hesitate about starting over. This brings us to another important tip to deal with failure – always stay in the present.
Reliving a bad experience will never be pleasant, especially if it’s a failure. Not only does it remind us that we made a mistake, it also slaps us with the reality that we can’t go back in time to correct it. In the same way, it’s bad to always think about what’s going to happen in the future. It will just derail our focus on the present which is in fact more importance because it’s what’s happening now.
Get Some Rest
Many of us tend to be over-thinkers. We tend to concentrate so much on things that we can never undo. This habit will most likely deprive us of the much needed sleep that our body requires. This will eventually reduce the optimal capacity of our mind and body to think and act effectively. So it’s always good to get rested after a failure in order for us to recover from the unpleasant experience and have full energy the next time we try to start over. And we should always remember that after we get our rest, the sun will shine again. We will have another shot at attaining much wanted success.
Reach Out to Your Family and Friends
Often we forget the presence of our family and friends in times of failure. We sometimes forget that these few people will never abandon us no matter what. So it’s a good idea to get in touch with them when you’re down or in trouble. They will be the ones to help us without any hint of being judgmental. They know us better than most people. They can guide us in the right direction and make us feel better.
Don’t be a Perfectionist
In some cases, being a perfectionist has its benefits. It makes us work harder to achieve the best results possible. However, in most cases, being one can be very disadvantageous. It may make us be too hard on ourselves after experiencing failure. It also blinds us from the fact that we can never really achieve perfection. We can only try to be as close to it as possible.
Don’t Rush Starting Over
Whenever we experience failure, we have to take time to examine and evaluate the causes. We have to make sure that we think things through, so that, when we start over, we will make the right decisions. We should do this because there is a tendency to will fail the second time if we rush things. Additionally, there is no deadline for starting over. We are in full control of when we want to try doing what we have failed in.