Responding to Failure

‘Failure’ is subjective. For some, failure is something substantial - like a failed relationship. For others - like me - failure can be something small - like miscommunication at work leading to slow progress.

I guess it’s safe to define failure as something that makes you feel like you were below par.

Why is it important to fail? Life is not a bed of roses. It will bring you challenges - familial, financial, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Hence, it is important to build the failure-resistant muscle.

For me, the way I deal with failure is to suspend emotions and be generous with myself. The internal sergeant is adept at jumpstarting into deprecating self-talk. I believe this happens more in people who:

• Set high standards for themselves

• Have a tendency to spend a lot of time in their head

• Don’t say a lot

This sergeant will say the following things to you:

• How could you be so silly?

• You’re not good enough for this.

• You’ve made a big blunder!

Respond to the sergeant in the following ways:

• Take it easy, it’s not such big a deal

• It is not about me, the person

• It is more about the idea associated with me

• I will use this tension constructively

• Tension means that the situation is stretching you in one direction

• It is up to you to decide that direction

• Get frustrated

• OR use the tension to learn and improve

Once the sergeant is quiet, I typically do the following:

• Write my thoughts down

• Reflect on them

• See the situation objectively

• Internalise how I can learn from this situation.

Some wise person has said - “failures are failures only if you don’t learn from them”.