How to Bounce Back from Failure - College Info Geek
Failure is painful, disappointing, and demoralizing. But in addition to these obvious emotional bruises, failure can impact us on an unconscious level as well, and leave wounds that are far more psychologically devastating. Recognizing the various psychological injuries we sustain when we fail and learning how to treat them will help you recover more rapidly and more fully, both psychologically and emotionally, and increase your chances of success in the future.
Recognizing the Wounds Failure Inflicts
1. Failure makes our goals seem tougher. Scientists asked people to kick an American football over a goalpost 10 times, after which they asked them to assess the distance and height of the goal post. People who failed at the task assessed the goalpost as being significantly further away and higher than people who succeeded. Failure impacts our unconscious perceptions such that our goals seem further and more out of reach. This causes another unconscious distortion:
2. Failure makes our abilities seem weaker. Once we fail we not only see our goals as harder to reach, we perceive ourselves as less capable of reaching them. Again, these are not accurate assessments but natural distortions that occur on an unconscious level. These two distortions have an additional impact:
3. Failure damages our motivation. Numerous studies have demonstrated that whether we believe we will succeed or fail has a direct impact on how much effort we invest in reaching our goal. When we fear we are unlikely to succeed, we unconsciously invest less effort in pursuing our goal, and consequently, we are indeed less likely to attain it. All of which introduces another unconscious dynamic:
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4. Failure makes us risk-averse. The less confident we are and the more worried we are about failing, the less likely we are to take risks, emotional or otherwise. Ironically, once we fail at a more conventional approach, finding a ‘riskier’ solution might be the best and most important avenue for us to pursue. But once we’re hesitant to take risks, we are less likely to even consider them, because:
5. Failure limits our ability to think outside the box. Once failure makes us more risk-averse, it impacts our ability to think more creatively and to find solutions that are "outside the box" because by definition, such solutions entail less certainty and more risk. But since these dynamics are largely unconscious, we often don’t recognize how our thinking has been impacted and instead believe we’ve simply run out of new approaches and ideas to pursue. Which is why:
6. Failure makes us feel helpless. Over 50 years ago, psychologists Martin Seligman and Steve Maier gave participants a test and told them it was indicative of intelligence—it was not. In fact, the test was rigged such that it was impossible to complete. They found that once participants failed at the (rigged) test, they acted helpless, so much so that when they were given a similar test, one that was well within their capacities, they failed at it—because they felt too helpless to give it a real try. Failure often makes us feel helpless even though we are not, because:
7. Failure leads us to make incorrect and damaging generalizations. When we fail we often generalize the experience in sweeping and self-punitive ways, and draw incorrect and unnecessary conclusions about our general intelligence, abilities, capacities, and even about our ‘luck in life’ or what was or wasn’t "meant to be." The only thing we can conclude for sure after a failure is that we were unsuccessful at that particular task/goal, in that particular time, in those particular circumstances.
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How to Treat the Wounds Failure Inflicts
1. Fight the distortions: Recognize that failure distorts your perceptions about the task itself and about your capacities. Don’t ‘buy’ that you are incapable. Adopt a mindset of persistence and optimism and refuse to give up.
2. Revive your self-worth. Try to ignore your recent failure for a moment and make a list of the qualities and capacities you possess that should (at least on paper) make it possible for you to succeed. If you have trouble coming up with a list, ask a friend or someone who knows you well to remind you of your strengths. Read your list and reconnect to your potential.
3. Remind yourself of what success would mean to you. Recharge your motivation by reconnecting to the reasons you began pursuing your goal in the first place. Consider how you would feel if you succeeded, especially after having already failed at a previous attempt.
4. Take calculated risks. Recognize that it is natural to feel anxious when considering less conventional options, but that it might be essential to do so. Create a list of all the various approaches you can think of, rank them according to the risks they entail, and make informed and calm choices about which to pursue first.
LIfe After Failure | Evan Hansen | TEDxNorthCentralCollege
5. Reengage your creativity. Brainstorm new approaches by following these two steps: In the first, list every approach you can think of while completely ignoring whether it is realistic or possible. Do not censure your ideas at all in this stage. Only once you have a complete and ‘crazy’ list should you go through it and think through what is or isn’t viable.
6. Focus on factors in your control: Most failures are related to inadequate planning, poor preparation, and insufficient effort. Figure out what was lacking in your planning, how you can be better prepared in the future, and how and where you can invest more effort.
7. Reframe the failure as a single incident. Make a list of the specifics of the situation that might be different when you approach the task next time. Include items such as circumstances, factors related to the other people involved, your mood, your spouse’s mood, the weather, your general frame of mind, how you slept, and as many others as you can. Then check off the many factors that might be different when you try again.
Ankit did his engineering from a tier-3 college.
Couldn't get a good job.
He was passionate about the UPSC-CSE exam, decided to pursue it with dedication instead of running here and there for a below average placement.
His general knowledge and IQ were above average. He was confident of selection.
He cleared the prelims in his first attempt itself and surprised everyone by clearing mains also.
His parents were too anxious, excited and hopeful until the results were out.
He was rejected.
He didn't lose hope and tried harder the next time, but couldn't even clear the prelims.
He was shocked seeing the prelims papers, his focussed studies couldn't help while people with general awareness got hold of the paper with quite ease.
In his third try, he couldn't clear the mains.
It had been years of trying and failing now, he was still a burden on his lower middle class parents, and there was almost no hope for future.
He went into deep depression. His mind kept thinking about just one thing 'career' in a never ending loop. He couldn't sleep at nights, stopped talking to friends and lost interest in everything.
Seeing his condition, his mother took him to a great saint, staying a 100 kilometres away from their home.
Why you have to fail to have a great career: Michael Litt at TEDxUW
The place was beautiful, surrounded by forests, on the footsteps of hill.
Ankit, otherwise disturbed felt quite better there.
Finally the saint met them and Ankit's mother explained everything.
He smiled and looked at Ankit.
'Son, are all your attempts exhausted?’
‘No, I have three more attempts' he replied.
'And then there would be other similar papers for government jobs'
'Yes Guruji, there are many other papers as well, like SSC, PCS and many others'
'Then why are you sad? You haven't even lost all hopes of selections and you are giving up in between? You have assumed a certain failure in future without even trying? My son, you should be happy and excited that despite three failures you still have some chances left, also you must have learnt many essential lessons from your failures which books can't teach'
Saint’s words touched Ankit like a magic pill. He went back and started preparing with a fresh zeal and enthusiasm.
Next time, Ankit failed again, and slowly, he exhausted all the remaining three options as well.
He couldn't be selected in any other reputed exam as well.
His passion was over, there was no hope now, he would never be an IAS officer in this life, he went into depression once again.
In agony and frustration, he went to that saint again.
He greeted the saint and said 'Guruji, you asked me to keep trying, but all attempts are exhausted now. What should I do with my life? My dreams have shattered'
Guruji smiled and said 'That’s great son'
He looked at Guruji in surprise and anger.
‘Since all scope is over, a chapter of your life has ended with this, and you passed in it with flying colours' continued the saint.
‘But I failed' said Ankit in a firm tone.
‘But you succeeded in giving your best till there was any hope left, this is the best a human can do for his/her life' said the saint.
‘But what now?’ said anxious Ankit.
Don't fear failure, unlock your inner creativity, and say yes | Don Dodge | TEDxAthens
‘Now what? Turn the next chapter, see what you can do best, create new goals. I don't think you have any time to waste on regretting? Also why cry for something which doesn't have any relevance in your life now?’ said Guruji with all the calmness one could have.
‘But Guruji it was my dream?’ cried Ankit.
‘But it was not your life son, you still have a big life to live, a long journey to cover. You wanted to get out at a beautiful station, but it is gone now, don't jump out of the moving train in regret and waste your life, keep going with the flow and look out of the window with hope, you will definitely find something more exciting, sooner or later.’
Guruji's words brought peace to Ankit, and he went back relieved and motivated to pursue new goals.
Finally he wasted his Parent's some more money and did an MBA from a relatively better college.
This time he got a good job, and the stats of his life improved remarkably.
He could fulfill some of his most beautiful dreams now, like getting a car, taking parents to Goa via flight, decorating his home etc.
He went to Guruji once again, but only to thank him.
Till you have hope you don't fail, after you lose all hope, you can't fail and a new chapter of life unveils itself.
You fail in life only when you stop trying in fear of failure.
Failure as opportunity - Jordan Peterson
“Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.” John C. Maxwell
About 4 years ago my business failed and the course of my life changed drastically.
I saw it coming, but I didn’t want to believe that the company I built from the scratch with my husband was slowly crumbling.
I wasn’t prepared to face money loss, debts, and dramatic lifestyle change.
Though, mostly, I wasn’t ready to deal with the emotional baggage that comes with failure.
When reality finally hit, I felt lost, guilty, gutted and so ashamed.
Ashamed for failing, for not making it, for not being good enough. So much so that all of my life accomplishments thus far faded away in comparison to this one, massive break down.
I’d failed myself, my partner, my parents, my friends. I felt all those eyes on me, on my failure, like an indelebile stain on my life that would never go away.
What was left of me was wounded pride, hurt ego and a great deal of fear and self-doubt. Basically, I’d identified myself with that failure to extents whose magnitude I’d understood only later on.
I fell into a state of depression, mixed with anxiety, panic attacks and even suicidal thoughts. I hated the world for being so unfair to me, despite all my efforts and hard work.
I also hated and blamed myself hard for the mistakes and bad choices that led to the crash. And when I say crash I mean it. Like a car crash, like that was it. At 33 years-old I was dead. I couldn’t look back nor forward. And the present sucked too.
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I was prescribed benzodiazepines and antidepressants and I abused them for the following couple of years.
I was truly a hot mess. Completely blocked. Paralyzed. Incapable of accepting my situation and move on.
I literally felt coated in shame, all over my body, face, and mind. For a while I couldn’t even talk about it, not even with my family and close friends, for fear of ruining my image of a successful, accomplished entrepreneur.
As I write this, from where I stand now, I have mixed feelings: I’m both sad and thankful. Sad for how much I’ve hurt myself and thankful because I needed to survive a crash in order to understand that life is made of “crashes” and the difference between failure and success lies in how we deal with them.
And here we get to the point: How did I get out of my misery and come to this realization? How did I recover from failure?
It took 3 years of continuous and hard work on myself to change perspective, to see things differently and get rid of self-destructive emotions. In particular, I had to completely flip over the way I’d see failure.
It’s been a tough journey and in this piece I’d like to share it with you, if anything because there’s so many of us going through the same struggle.
Just another article about how necessary failure is on the road to success, you may be thinking. Nothing new.
But, despite all the literature and psychological studies on the topic, people keep on suffering from the pressure of the dichotomy failure/success, like author Chris Brock recently wrote in The Guardian.
In this day and age people commit suicide because of failure, whether personal or public, perceived or actual. Too often this occurs way before even entering the job market, like in the case of school exams and the abnormal pressure that their outcome puts on students. In 2017, The Guardian reported an increase in the rate of suicide among British students during the exam season and, in 2019, The Independent wrote about similar instances among Indian students.
Failure Is Part of Success: Eduardo Zanatta at TEDxBYU
It appears clear that there’s something really wrong in the way our society — on a global level — defines failure. There’s a long-standing misconception about it rooted in many cultures. Take Japan for example: during the samurai era the form of suicide known as seppuku or harakiri was respected as a means of making up for failure.
From Est to West, North to South, the core idea about failure has the negative connotation of something bad, that shouldn’t occur; something unforgivable and definitive.
As kids we are told by family and at school not to make mistakes, to avoid failure and that we shall succeed in what we do. Failure and success are commonly presented as opposites and the pressure brought by this perspective takes a heavy toll on people. It generates unhappiness, anxiety, depression, addiction and even death.
Therefore, I believe that every experience and advice on how to deal with failure is useful to topple such an entrenched system of wrong beliefs.
If you are struggling with failure, read on to discover the 5 strategies that helped me, and will help you, deal with failure and turn it into something positive, something to be grateful for.
1. Replace the word “failure” with “experience.”
Stop for a second and think about it: what is a failure if not an experience? Isn’t it something that you do that doesn’t go as planned, doesn’t bring the results you hoped for, or simply doesn’t go through?
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We can easily describe failure the same way we’d do an experience: a set of actions, their consequences, the emotions we feel in the process, the interactions with other people, the circumstances we can or cannot anticipate and our reaction to those.
Language carries very deep meanings and affects the ways we understand things.
The term “failure” brings with it a burden of negative emotions, including shame, guilt and regret. It hinders our progress as we get stuck in mental loops and rumination about the fact that it shouldn’t have happened; that we’re not good enough; that we did something wrong and we should have done and known better.
How narrow and counterproductive this way ofthinking is!
“Experience”, on the other hand, brings about the idea of learning. It’s one among many others. It’s something that we can more easily look back to and learn from. It’s not definitive because it can teach us lessons that will serve us in the future.
In fact, in order to grow and get better, humanly and professionally, we need experiences. And, usually, bad or disappointing experiences — what we often define as failures — are the ones that really teach us something valuable for our lives.
Why is that?
'How I Respond To Failure' Elon Musk
When things go well we feed our Ego, which likes to get comfortable in the podium of pride and affirmation.
Contrarily, when things do not go as expected, we are forced to reconsider, revise and question ourselves. Those are uncomfortable yet revealing moments.
Indeed, when we see failures as experiences we open our mind to understand what we could have done differently in a given situation. Those are the teachings that allow us to get better results the next time.
Difficult, challenging experiences are among the most valuable sources of learning and are necessary to our growth . Failures teach us what to do and not do, how we can choose more wisely, how to adopt a better behavior, what needs to be improved and what needs to be let go.
In other words, if we don’t fail we can’t learn. We need trials before figuring out the right way. The earlier we fail the sooner we’ll find the path towards our success.
2. Tame the Ego. Practice Humility.
Buddhism defines the Ego as an “illusion of the self”.
In psychology, the Ego is the rational mind. It’s responsible for controlling our instinctual impulses and dealing with the external world in a rational way.
Although they sound very different, those definitions are linked.
A great deal of responsibility is assigned to our Ego. It’s what controls the way we think and act. It’s our rational self and, in a society ruled by reason, it tends to get bigger and bigger as we grow up.
The Ego thinks that we can control the events and their outcome. It believes that we are directly responsible for everything that happens to us. It’s what triggers negative emotions like blame and guilt.
Going back to Buddhism: this degree of control is a flat-out illusion and it’s the cause of a lot of psychological and emotional pain.
Accordingly, people with a big Ego (hey there!) often panic and get excessively hurt when things don’t go as they planned.
The point I’m trying to get across is that the Ego is the side of the self that’s adverse to acceptance and resistant to change.
The Ego is our comfort zone and experiencing failure gets us right out of it. When out of our comfort zone we go through a process that is mind opening, learning and humbling.
Taming the ego is crucial in order to be able to deal with failure.
How do we do that?
By practicing humility. And, as in every practice, it takes time and dedication.
Humility slaps the Ego in the face because it takes us down from “the podium” and places us among others.
Being humble allow us to give the right weight to failures in our lives. And that’s because we realize that everybody fails. Everybody makes mistakes. It’s not all about us.
A humble mind doesn’t compare to other people’s success, but lets us focus on our own journey to achieve it. We are not better than others, but we’re not worse either. The competition is with ourselves.
Therefore, humbling up turns failure into a chance for personal and professional improvement.
When you practice humility you don’t beat yourself up, but you rather roll up your sleeves and try again, in the light of the newly acquired knowledge.
Don’t you feel lighter all of a sudden?
How to Recover From Big Mistakes
3. Practice Acceptance.
This was one of the hardest parts for me, big ego girl.
In fact, an Ego hurt by failure is delusional. It simply can’t accept the reality of things, if such reality doesn’t correspond to its expectations.
Humility leads to acceptance: we can’t change the past, but we can understand it. We come to terms with our present situation, no matter how difficult it is, and we realize that our best option is to learn from our failures and move on.
No shame, no blame.
Acceptance means acknowledging our failing nature as humans. It allows us to learn how to act out of our comfort zone.
An accepting attitude recognizes the benefits of a blow in that it prepares us to take other blows, fight back and, ultimately, win.
Acceptance is the awareness that there will be other opportunities and enables us to see the unexpected ones that come our way.
When we accept failure as an experience among others, instead of complaining or despairing over it, we make room for the changes we need to become and do better.
4. Embrace Change
Failure normally involves two, opposite reactions: getting stuck blaming yourself for letting it happen, or learning the lesson and moving on a stronger basis.
The former can lead to the misery I’ve been through, whereas the latter entails positive change.
The Ego, by definition, refuses change because it can’t control it. Instead, an accepting and humble mind embraces change and its degree of uncertainty and hardship, but also as something new and exciting.
That’s not easy because, often, change is damn scary.
So what’s the best way to embrace change?
Firstly, by accepting the fact that everything, including ourselves, always changes, minute by minute, second after second, regardless of what we do.
Secondly, by learning to let go.
How to Handle Failures in Life | Brian Tracy
Recovering from failure is about letting go of the past, not staying anchored to it.
For a while I tried to save my business, to bring it back to the way it was. That only made me more disappointed, angry, frustrated and completely stressed out.
Letting go doesn’t mean disregarding or dismissing, it’s realizing that you can’t fix the unfixable. A smarter thing to do is to take with you what you’ve learned from your mistakes, understand the valuable lessons and use your newly acquired skills and knowledge as your weapons to succeed next time. That is: Fail Forward!
Only by embracing the changes that the experience of failure brings into our lives we can turn it into a positive experience, one that provides us with the necessary tools to build our success.
5. Turn the Negative into Positive
Easier said than done right?
It’s, indeed, very hard to perceive something bad that happened to us, something that caused loads of problems and made us suffer as a good thing.
But there’s a way: Gratitude.
We could sum up this mental process through the super common expression: “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
As cliche’ as this sounds, it’s actually true.
Without failures, and painful experiences in general, we couldn’t possibly grow, become stronger, wiser and overall better as people, in our social and professional life.
Think of Boxing as metafore of life: you need to get hit before being able to fight back. You need to fall before learning to get back up. You have to be cornered before finding the strength to break through and strike back.
This is one of the biggest and hardest lessons I’ve learned throughout my failure recovery process: being grateful for everything I’ve been through.
The toughest 3 years of my life turned out to be the most learning ones thus far.
I’ve changed. And I’ve embraced who I’ve become: a different person and, frankly, a much better one.
How To Deal With Failure? | Sadhguru Wisdom
I’m stronger on many levels, I’ve learned new skills, I’m more patient, more open minded, more determined. I can finally speak up for myself instead of being afraid of disappointing people. I’m up for challenges and I don’t take everything so personally.
I could go on and on regarding the positive changes that my company’s failure brought into my life, but I won’t annoy you with that. You get the gist!
By practicing gratitude I’m able to see the positive teachings and the new knowledge that came out of this extremely hard moment in my life.
Even in regard to the long list of people who brought me down along the way: I used to be poisoned by the hatred I felt. I wanted bloody revenge on all of them. But who was getting really hurt on a daily basis? Just me.
Now I can thank them ( though still a pretty hard daily practice) because they are part of what gave me the motivation to do and be my best — which is also the best revenge of all.
So be grateful for failures, mistakes and even for your enemies: these are the teachers from which you’ll learn the most important lessons towards being the person you strive to be and build the life you truly want.
To conclude, it’s important to underline that all of the 5 strategies listed above are a work in progress. A process of growth and learning.
They all require a constant practice because knowing something doesn’t necessarily mean feeling it.
Some days the old patterns of the Ego will prevail. Other days you’ll be able to apply those strategies and win over the negative emotions. The more you’ll practice those strategies the more natural they’ll become.
As many before me stated: failure is indeed the key to success. But it’s up to you to make it such.
Sadhguru - Failure is a great blessing, that you can use !
The tears had dried up. The salt had formed crusts on those cheeks. Bloodshot eyes, empty, hollow and broken were staring back from that mirror.
I’d always been fairly decent academically. At school I’d usually been in the top 5. I’d won more scholarships and math and science competitions than I could remember. I’d grown up being that kid parents told their kids about. But then something changed. In the 11th and 12th grade, while many of my friends were busy preparing for JEE, I was meaninglessly whiling away my time telling anyone who would listen how IITs are overrated and that they were wasting their best years chasing something pointless. A couple of years later, most of my friends got into really good colleges, not only in Pune but across the country. I was at a small unheard of college by the highway, but I convinced myself how awesome this was because I was a big fish in a small pond. After barely studying in my first year and still scoring decent grades, complacency hit hard and I developed a sense of misplaced arrogance. And then, in that third semester, reality struck.
I stood there, holding that mark-sheet, looking down at a grade I’d never seen before in my life. A big, bold, capital “F”. Somehow I rode back home, completely on muscle memory, and walked straight into my room and sat on the bed, shocked. My girlfriend came home an hour later because I wasn’t answering my phone and my mom told her to go see what was going on coz I wasn’t speaking to anyone. There, in her arms, I broke down; I cried like I hadn’t in years, and all the lies I’d told myself, all those convenient stories I’d cherry picked came crashing down on me. In that moment I knew that I was exactly what that one letter denoted, a failure. I don’t know whether it was minutes, hours or the whole evening before she finally let go.
When I went in to the bathroom to wash my face, the tears had dried up. The salt had formed crusts on those cheeks. Bloodshot eyes, empty, hollow and broken broken were staring back at me in that mirror.I detested that person I was staring at. In that moment, I decided to stop living a lie. I decided to turn my life around and dig myself out of the deep hole I’d managed to get myself into. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I was fortunate enough to have friends and family who were incredibly supportive over the next couple of years while I worked myself back on my feet.
How does one recover from failure?
Top 5 Speeches To Overcome ANY Failure | Motivation to GET BACK UP | Goalcast
We all screw up sometimes. We make poor decisions. We fail. It’s what we do after that happens that defines who we truly are. Do we lie down and accept our fate, or do we get back up, inch by inch, taunt by taunt, fear by fear and become the person we want to look at in the mirror every night before bed?
That's all it really is, a simple choice.
In case we haven’t met before, I’m Rohan Kamath.
Thank you for reading. I hope I could help you ponder today. :)
Failure is nothing but lack of success,and if you want success you need to face failures.
Great people have faced failure before acheiving success Eg.Elon Musk
Now to how deal with it?
Just take a break, analyse where did you go wrong that didn't let you to acheive your dream.
Now after analysing things, start working ony our weakness,work hard really hard, try again, than you will definitely acheive success.
If you still didnt get success, try again.
“Try Try till you succeed”
Look I will quote my example,
Pathology first internals I scored 18/100 (yeah that's very poor I know that I had some works during internals because of that I couldn't study properly)
I blamed myself for such poor marks,and than I really worked hard in lockdown, I scored 64/100 in final internals and in university exams I scored 68% marks in pathology.
I know 68% is not that great but from 18–68 is great ryt?
If I stopped studying patho after scoring such low marks in first internals,I would have been a failure in university exams too,but I didn't do that, I worked on my weakness and than acheived success.
So failure is not bad.
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