How to overcome failure in life?

Failure … this is something we all have faced in life. Many times we are not able to pull off some something we desire for. This may be a relationship, or a career goal or a competitive exam. When we fail miserably, we get too much disappointed and not able to see the next course of action. At this point we have two options, either sit and regret about failure or bounce back and overcome failure in life. 

Highly successful people are the ones who have failed the most. These people chose the second option which I mentioned above; they bounce back, overcome failure and get on the track again. Of course, you are one of them, that’s why you are here and reading this article.

Why Failure is Important in life?

Failure is important aspect of life. I know, you must be thinking how being a failure in certain things can be useful in any way?  Failure is life’s greatest teacher; the lessons you learn from it are not taught in any university. It’s nature’s own mechanism to teach you to forgo all the excess, strip down your egos and understand life rules.

Failure is part of life. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” ~ Paulo Coelho

There are reason; why I feel failure is of utmost importance in life

• You gain experience from failure
• It reinforces the inner strength
• Failure acts as change agent
• Failure brings with it important firsthand knowledge
• It helps to build resilience
• You grow and become more mature

How to overcome failure and get back on track in life?

Following are the six steps to overcome failure and get back on the track after you messed up in life.  These are best way to handle failure, which I have learnt out of my experience.

1.Give a Pause

Whenever you fail in life, give a pause. The first and foremost thing is to try to come out of the shock you have just received. Post Failure situations are not so easy to handle. You feel emotionally down. Failure is accompanied by a variety of emotions: lower self-esteem, embarrassment, anger, anxiety, sadness, and shame, to name a few. Such feelings are uncomfortable, unpleasant and cause emotional disruption leading to mental health issues.

Observe, embrace and overcome such emotions.  Do meditation and yoga, visit people and places which give you mental peace. Watch movies, play with kids, listen music or do whatever which distracts your mind from current failure. One of the best technique to regain yourself from that past is to practice mindfulness. It allows you to live in the present movement.  Once you have taken some time to walk it off and clear your head, you can then begin accepting what has happened.

2. Rebuild your self confidence

For some people, the wounds of these failures are so profound that they never recover their confidence. Once you fail big, your self confidence is shattered like a glass and you start seeing darkness all around. Being Strong building your self confidence again is most important step in getting back on track again. The important thing you need to tell yourself every single morning is “you can and you will do it again”. Try to memorize all past failure and the way you come out of that garbage. Try to remember your success and achievements in life. Focus your spotlight on the positive parts of life.

3. Analyze the mistakes

Understanding what went wrong is important.  Try to figure out the reason of failure. Analyze, take accountability, accept and learn from mistakes. I know this will be quite painful to remembering and analyzing the whole failure again, because there will be lot of ifs and buts in mind. But it’s important, all these ifs and buts will be important parameters for future plan and goal setting. Be brutally honest with yourself on why it happened at all? Try to jot down what did you learn from this failure to help you become a stronger and better person in the future.

4. Discuss with your close ones

Once you have done all the analysis, discuss the same with your close ones. May be your family, your childhood best friend, your mentor or guru or anyone with whom you are close enough to discuss critically all the positives and negatives of your personality. Hearing a harsh criticism about your behavior and work can be a bit demotivating, and even frustrating for few people. But, all you need to do is to positively receive the constructive feedback.

Work on your weaknesses, don’t try to ignore them. Stay away from negative people and don’t seek any approval from them.

5. Plan your new approach

Now the time comes for making blueprint for further course of action. What would you do differently this time? You may start backward from achieving goals. Try to plug all the loopholes of last planning. If your goals are not SMART, rework on those and amend them. Work on each aspect minutely keeping in mind the last failure learnings.

6. Get back to track

Get back on the track, the derailed train of your life. Rebuild yourself and restart your journey. Recharge your strengths and build a network and resources to achieve your re-framed goals. Try to uplift your emotional quotient and make a commitment with self that you will keep you mouth shut and won’t listen the negative people.

Always have friends whose company keeps you motivated. Celebrate small achievements and keep pictures of them in bedroom or living room.

Keep reflecting time to time where you started and how did you overcome the hurdles and challenges, It will keep you motivated and keep you on track.

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” ~ Winston Churchill

At every failure, remember one thing: “This is not the first failure you have faced in life and this won’t be the last failure you will face.” Failure and success are part of life. Your ability to overcome failure will determine where you end up in your life.

Failure helps you to grow into a much better person.  It’s necessary for your journey to success. Let failure make you stronger, tougher and more resilient so that you don’t just survive it but you’ll bounce back stronger and achieve success in life.

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