Is there a person on earth who hasn’t experienced failure even in the most inconsequential of pursuits? There isn’t. Failure is part of life, like white on rice.
Failure is when we don’t achieve or get something that we expect and want to have or attain at any certain point in time. It’s when we get disappointed with the results of our efforts or get resentful about the consequences of our own actions, resulting in feelings of failure. It’s when we become discontented with our lives and need to realign parts of ourselves to be in touch with what constitutes happiness. People fail in relationships, in school, at work, in marriages, business, finances, sports, personal endeavors, and practically everything else in life. Sometimes, we even fail to remember if we’ve already taken our vitamin pill this morning or not. |
But failure is not always what it seems. And we are forced to deal with it to strike a balance between being in a constant state of contentment and a heightened sense of appreciation for what life has to offer. But how do we deal with failure? Or how should we deal with failure? I’m not going to pretend to be some life coach, or present you a to-do list on how to cope with failure (a list that good old Google can proudly, randomly, and magically share with you). I’ll just let it flow from my psyche.
When we fail and become sad, many times we’re casually advised to just look on the bright side or just count our blessings. Because for every failure there is a looming success on the horizon. It’s not based on the law of averages but rather on the idea that any experience we have with failure can be countered by an existential manifestation of success – vibrantly produced by our untapped, soul-searching, subconsciously-wired, philosophical minds.
When we fail and become sad, many times we’re casually advised to just look on the bright side or just count our blessings. Because for every failure there is a looming success on the horizon. It’s not based on the law of averages but rather on the idea that any experience we have with failure can be countered by an existential manifestation of success – vibrantly produced by our untapped, soul-searching, subconsciously-wired, philosophical minds.
When you’re down, you’re more likely to go up than stay at the bottom because you’re forced to find ways to make yourself feel better. It can mean changing one’s perspective on any perceived problem or failure. Maybe success and failure are just illusions resulting from our natural inclination to seek pleasure and from our ever-present pursuit of happiness. Anything that’s bad or outside what’s considered to be normal can be interpreted and accepted as failure in any individual’s cognitive processes.
Is it good to become a billionaire if you don’t invest your money wisely? Is it even good to have that amount of money? How good (or bad) is it to have that much money and not donate some of it to charities or help feed and cure the thousands of sickly, malnourished and dying children in the worst parts of Africa? How do we define a billionaire like J. Paul Getty who was so obsessed about accumulating wealth and keeping it to himself like Uncle Scrooge? Was his success in business also meant his own failure in some particular aspect of his erroneously frugal life? |
By changing your perspective, even a failure can surreptitiously mean success by way of life’s trade-offs. Everything we do in life has a trade-off. A man who becomes a famous movie star loses his privacy and personal security - the trade-offs – and perhaps would remain in that situation for a long time or possibly for the rest of his life. We always lose something in exchange for another that we gain – each separately is a positive thing.
There are no two ways about it. If you jog thirty minutes a day, you’d lose the same number of minutes spending extra time with your toddler or watching an episode of your new favorite show on Hulu. If you adopt a dog and welcome it in your home with all your heart and soul, what’s the trade-off there? You grieve when it dies in the future. From that standpoint, if you failed to meet your deadline or win in a sports competition, you can simply change your perspective and think about and look for the trade-off, regardless of how, more or less crucial, the significance is between what you’ve lost and what you’ve gained.
More often than not, there’s something to be gained from every failure, and usually how your mind shifts in examining every nuanced and undervalued disturbance in your personal bubble can mean a huge difference in finding relief from feelings of incompetence and inadequacy. That’s how changing one’s perspective can affect your well-being in a positive way. The mind is our most powerful weapon, and I don’t mean that as a hyperbole.
If you’re an entrepreneur who fails and decides to close up shop, it’s often justified to make excuses or think of reasons as to why and how your business failed. Maybe you simply didn’t do your best, or you’ve overestimated yourself. Or you’ve been hit badly by the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Or you didn’t have enough funds. You can probably think of a hundred reasons for your failure. To help and somehow offset that predicament, you can look for something that you’ve gained at the expense of losing your livelihood - no matter how small the gain. That’s the least you can do to deal with failure. Accept it and move on. Just don’t forget to pick up your consolation right from the get-go after losing the battle.
In light of that psychological mechanism, the process of “moving on” normally means accepting your failure, your defeat, and practicing a kind of avoidance behavior by completely shutting yourself off from the very thing that brought you failure. If you’re a failed businessman, you probably would never want to become a businessman again. That’s fine, wise even, but it’s also a comfortable way to embrace failure by propelling yourself to other areas where you can excel and find success. You look for redemption elsewhere.
On the flipside, perhaps the most noble and inspiring thing to do to deal with failure is to learn from it. Learn from your mistakes, shortcomings, negative habits, unreasonable lifestyle, and anything that could have contributed to your lack of success in your business. You take the bull by the horns and just be positive and confident about everything (as a result of your newfound wisdom stemming from your experience with failure). In other words, turn your failure into success. Or at least try to, if possible. If you fail in one business, try a different one. Start over and have your meaningful revenge in the near future. Thousands of people have done that before you, so maybe you can relax a bit and take comfort in that. Also, do conscious deep-breathing by inhaling thru your nose and exhaling thru your mouth for twenty counts at a time. Mind you, it’s not something you’d hear from a quack doctor. It’s a legit potent remedy against anxiety. But don’t take my word for it.
There are no two ways about it. If you jog thirty minutes a day, you’d lose the same number of minutes spending extra time with your toddler or watching an episode of your new favorite show on Hulu. If you adopt a dog and welcome it in your home with all your heart and soul, what’s the trade-off there? You grieve when it dies in the future. From that standpoint, if you failed to meet your deadline or win in a sports competition, you can simply change your perspective and think about and look for the trade-off, regardless of how, more or less crucial, the significance is between what you’ve lost and what you’ve gained.
More often than not, there’s something to be gained from every failure, and usually how your mind shifts in examining every nuanced and undervalued disturbance in your personal bubble can mean a huge difference in finding relief from feelings of incompetence and inadequacy. That’s how changing one’s perspective can affect your well-being in a positive way. The mind is our most powerful weapon, and I don’t mean that as a hyperbole.
If you’re an entrepreneur who fails and decides to close up shop, it’s often justified to make excuses or think of reasons as to why and how your business failed. Maybe you simply didn’t do your best, or you’ve overestimated yourself. Or you’ve been hit badly by the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Or you didn’t have enough funds. You can probably think of a hundred reasons for your failure. To help and somehow offset that predicament, you can look for something that you’ve gained at the expense of losing your livelihood - no matter how small the gain. That’s the least you can do to deal with failure. Accept it and move on. Just don’t forget to pick up your consolation right from the get-go after losing the battle.
In light of that psychological mechanism, the process of “moving on” normally means accepting your failure, your defeat, and practicing a kind of avoidance behavior by completely shutting yourself off from the very thing that brought you failure. If you’re a failed businessman, you probably would never want to become a businessman again. That’s fine, wise even, but it’s also a comfortable way to embrace failure by propelling yourself to other areas where you can excel and find success. You look for redemption elsewhere.
On the flipside, perhaps the most noble and inspiring thing to do to deal with failure is to learn from it. Learn from your mistakes, shortcomings, negative habits, unreasonable lifestyle, and anything that could have contributed to your lack of success in your business. You take the bull by the horns and just be positive and confident about everything (as a result of your newfound wisdom stemming from your experience with failure). In other words, turn your failure into success. Or at least try to, if possible. If you fail in one business, try a different one. Start over and have your meaningful revenge in the near future. Thousands of people have done that before you, so maybe you can relax a bit and take comfort in that. Also, do conscious deep-breathing by inhaling thru your nose and exhaling thru your mouth for twenty counts at a time. Mind you, it’s not something you’d hear from a quack doctor. It’s a legit potent remedy against anxiety. But don’t take my word for it.
Most importantly, just keep on trying!
As the greatest basketball player who ever lived, Michael Jordan, once said: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career: I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”