How to Overcome Failures:

10 Rules to Get the Success from Failures

“Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.” These are the words of C.S. Lewis, the late British writer known for penning the Narnia chronicles.

In today’s age and day, success is viewed as the only pinnacle of life. To be an all-time great, you need to be successful. Dictated by speed, progress, and gain, but often hindered by many obstacles, including failure, people tend to step down due to fear of failure. But what they don’t understand is that failure is part of the learning curve. It is part of the process and it is by overcoming the fear of failure can we overcome failure. Not everyone has to be successful at that they do or try; it is okay to not be the best. What should not be regarded as “okay” is stopping due to fear of failure or failure itself.

We all fail in the smallest of things:

Doing our homework, following a diet, keeping up with our exercise regimen, going to the gym regularly, and maintaining our New Years’ resolution. We also fail in the larger things: working on our issues, overcoming an addiction, or holding on to an important relationship. And sometimes, these failures, unfortunately, impact our lives negatively. But no matter the type of failure we face that holds us back, there is always a chance to learn something out of it. A hope that next time, we can do better.

One does indeed gain inspiration from one’s idol on the uphill hike to success, to try and find a road to the sky themselves, to carve their own niche in this world. While emulating someone and going up the same road as them might give you a kind of a safety net in the form of a built road, it is also primed for a spectacular disaster, just waiting to take place.

Nobody is the same and we all need to build ourselves as we journey through life. Some of the most influential people we know have failed at something that we know them for today. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC’s School of Theatre, Film, and Television thrice, Ludwig van Beethoven was told he was too stupid to compose music. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of a plethora of greats that were told they weren’t any good in the field we all associate them with.

HOW DOES FAILURE TRIGGER MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS?

However beneficial failure may be for an individual’s personal growth development, it can trigger a large number of mental conditions.

Some of them being- DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, BIPOLAR DISORDER, OVERTHINKING, LACK OF SELF ESTEEM, LACK OF SELF CONFIDENCE and a SENSE OF WORTHLESSNESS which gets to a person’s head and makes it extremely difficult for him/her to function or carry on with the simplest of tasks as it constantly plays on their mind and affects them extremely negatively. A person may start indulging in ill habits such as alcoholism or drug addiction, or in some cases- both.

How to Overcome Failures

We can overcome failure simply by welcoming it and allowing it to shape us, making us wiser and allowing our future endeavors to redeem us. It is easier said than done but it is also a necessary lesson to learn about life.

1. To face failure, we need to first accept it. That is step one: Accepting failure; to accept it, we need to face ground reality and try to understand why we failed. Don’t try to sugar-coat it and push yourself away from it. Despite the frequency and magnitude of failure, a lot of people mask it or don’t confront it. We must not shy away from our weaknesses because our strengths are not really our strengths. The weaknesses that we should work on and better end up being our true strengths in the long run.

2. Look for responsibility;

For one to have failed, something went wrong. It can be as simple as a calculation error or something grave like gross misconduct. In any case, we must try to isolate the cause. The cause can be within us too. Everyone’s initial tendency is to blame someone else, but what we don’t realize is that “the blame game” does no good. Taking responsibility and being true to yourself while taking it lays the groundwork for accepting failure and overcoming it.

3. Processing the weakness;

To be better at something we aren’t good at, before working on it we must process it and understand why we are bad at it. This goes for all weaknesses. If one is bad at singing, is the underlying issue the vocal notes or the timing or the pitch.

4. Be constructive and open to criticism;

Question yourself. Let others with an opinion tell you about it. If you sucked at one part, hear it a thousand times from someone, and feel the humiliation. Understand that everyone has an opinion regardless of whether you want them to have one or not. And listen to it, don’t hear it. Listen to it. Feel the humiliation and then start working on it so you never have to face that feeling again.

5. Don’t mull over it for long; processing the situation,

understanding where you went wrong, and being constructive about it are indeed essential methods in the process but somehow, one can get lost in the middle.

7. Let go sometimes;

Let go of the external factors that you have nothing to do with. I believe in one very simple, yet beautiful thought by Paulo Coelho. “when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” There are some things we can’t control and we need to find that glimmer of courage and belief that lets us take that leap of faith.

8. Sometimes, ask for help;

Everyone is born and dies alone but that does not mean we have to go through life alone. Friends and family are there to support us no matter what, unconditionally and unequivocally. We don’t need to navigate through life alone, there is a surfeit of help n support all around the world, there still is hope for humanity.

9. Map out a plan;

Always map out a plan, not with huge goals but small, daily goals. Taking baby steps and then improving upon yourself every day is the key to achieving success. And even if it isn’t about achieving success, there is no harm in improving yourself.

10. Take action!!;

In the midst of planning and deliberating, don’t forget you still need to start your journey.

Failure is a necessary part of the journey. And part of the journey is the end. We live once, and we must make the most of it. Failure is a hindrance almost all of us face at least once in our lives. Falling down is part of life, but getting up is not something all of us are able to do. So aspire to get up, move on, and be a better person day by day. And never forget, helping someone along the way does not hinder your path. Always try to keep hope alive and find redemption in failure