Believe that you are resilient and can bounce back from failure. Often your harshest critic is yourself. See your self-worth through your ability to keep trying rather than giving up. [1] X Research source While you may not be good at one thing, that doesn’t mean that you’re bad at everything.
Use what you do well to your advantage in the future. While it is important to improve things about yourself, it is also important to keep those good things strong. Avoid overly negative thinking by focusing on the positive aspects of yourself and your life. Think of three things that are going well in this current moment.
Some friends or family may offer healthy criticism. Avoid dismissing it, but also ask them to focus equally on the positives as well as the negatives. Consider saying, “Thank you very much for the advice. I will take it to heart. I was also wondering, from your perspective, what are some things I’ve been doing well?” By opening up about your failing to others, you will feel less burdened or alone. It can be a very important step to letting go of your negative feelings. Chances are these people will have plenty of stories about their own failures, too.
Take this as an opportunity to focus on what you can do. For example, failing to get to work on time due to extreme weather circumstances may have been out of your control. Yet, failing to get to work on time routinely due to time mismanagement may have been within your control. When looking at a recent failure, consider writing down two lists, side by side. One side includes the things that you can change about yourself or your situation. The other side includes the external forces that you cannot control.
By seeing failure as temporary, it will seem less overwhelming. It will feel like a small hill rather than a huge mountain. When something is temporary, that means that it is more likely to adapt or change. Thus, failure can become a positive thing as times change.
Think about the possibility of failure in any situation. See it as a way to be motivated to be more organized, more thorough, and more engaged. Consider the scenarios in which you both win and fail. Imagine how you might react. Plan accordingly. Focus your energy on how to be positive and stay motivated no matter the outcome. Making back-up plans can help you avoid a fear of failure. If you can anticipate failure and have a plan B and C, then you can more successfully face the prospect of failure with less fear.
Think about the most difficult challenge that you have overcome. Use this as motivation that you can overcome what’s happening now. Use failure as wisdom for the future. When you look back in a week, month, or year from now, you may feel stronger for having faced your failures. Remember this as a way to embrace failure: “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. “[7] X Research source
Try thinking of mistakes as experiments. You won’t know whether or not something works unless you try it. And if you try, and it is a failure, then now you have more information moving forward. Place the importance on what you learned, rather than what was. When something doesn’t work, you become more informed about what might work in the future. Find people that support you. Listen to their advice about what to learn from this experience. If you’re on a sports team, your coach and fellow players may have helpful advice about what to do. Think about how many famous businesspeople, inventors, artists, and scientists all had failures before they had success. They learned from their mistakes, and kept going. [9] X Research source
Many athletes, scientists, and business tycoons will all tell you the same thing: failure is a part of what makes you successful. [10] X Research source You will learn more from the hard failures than from the easy successes. You will actually be stronger and more resilient from those failures.
Be future-oriented rather than dwelling on the past. While the past can help you to understand what to do better, fixating on past mistakes will deter you from seeing the possibilities for the future. Don’t let fear of failure determine your future fate. Believe that the willingness to try new things and learn from them will help you grow in the future. [11] X Research source See your future goals as challenges. You likely will find greater reward when doing something difficult rather than something easy.
Review the challenges that occurred even before the failure. For example, let’s say you had a team project with three other people, and this project ended up failing to meet your teacher’s or company’s expectations. Assess how the team could have communicated more effectively. Determine which aspects of the project were lacking and how they could have been improved. Evaluate external forces that your team could not control. Avoid blaming yourself for all the problems, or blaming others for a mistake that you took part in. Be respectful to yourself and others regardless of the success or failure. This review process should help you to prevent or decrease mistakes in the future. While finding solutions to your mistakes may not be easy or fun, it will help to prepare you for next time.
By taking ownership of your own faults, it shows that you are mature. If you avoid admitting wrongdoing, you may lose out on an opportunity to move forward with your work, team, or situation. While it can be uncomfortable to admit fault, it may be worse when you avoid doing so.
It takes guts to ask someone out for a date. Don’t give up because one person says no — ask somebody else you like! It takes guts to start your own business. Small businesses and start-ups have a high risk of failure. But your product also might lead to the next best thing. [15] X Trustworthy Source Harvard Business Review Online and print journal covering topics related to business management practices Go to source
Optimism. You strive to do better. Confidence. You believe in yourself. Creativity. You have a plan for how to improve.
Find out what you can do better by asking others about your strengths and where there is room for improvement. Be a support for those around you. When you’re helping others, you’ll feel less like a failure.
