Hi Folks! Have you ever tasted the flavor of failure in your life? I had confronted a massive failure in my life. I failed in an entrance exam of a renowned university for the Doctoral Studies. The humiliation, negative experiences, taunts from my relatives ann friends, that I had to fear was the worst part of my life. Failures in academics, relationships, profession, interviews, competitions, etc have become a common part and parcel of our lives. Nothing is perfect in the world we live in, but we all need to strive towards perfection.

When I failed in that exam, I thought that was the end of the world. I got so depressed that I could hardly eat, sleep or concentrate on anything. It was not my failure that was haunting me. Rather it was my outer environment (comments and criticisms from people) that was making my life horrible. I was ready to quit pursuing my higher studies. Finally it was my Mom who taught me about the dynamics of failure and how to deal with it. With her golden words and working on them I am here where I am today.

Reasons of Failure:

  • Lack of motivation: This is one of the major reasons of failure in life. We often do things under the pressure of someone or something. This buffer may push us towards our goal but in between this motivation fades of. This is because when you do something without your intrinsic or internal motivation, the spark would obviously extinguish one day. Other than this, sometimes a sedentary lifestyle, absence of a goal in life, health factors, situational demands, mild depression or profound stress and anxiety can also curb your motivation levels.

Tip: Try to love what you are doing. Try to have a definite goal in life and work to achieve that goal no matter what, but in an ethical manner.

  • Lack of perseverance: More than 99% of the people fail in their lives because they stop trying or do not try at all. If you are doing the same thing, it is high time to change your thinking process regarding this. Success is not something that will come to you overnight. You need to work for it and deserve it first. If you start doing something and fail in it, do not stop trying. You may not know that after another trial you may have succeeded. So do not leave the battle ground of life’s challenges in between. Perseverance is the key to grab everything good and worth in life. Even if you have failed today, success will soon be yours but if you keep on trying and if you do not quit.
  • Faulty time management and planning: I have seen many people who complain that they failed because they did not have time. I say dude! You have a whole lot of 24 hrs in your hand, right? Many people just don’t know how to manage their lifestyle and time and finally end up getting doomed in almost everything they venture into. We will never have time for everything. If you want to do something we will have to take out time for it.

Tip: Try to make a time-table and stick to it. Do not be too harsh on yourself if you cannot adhere to it and do not make unrealistic, unattainable goals. Instead, keep it small, simple yet worthwhile. With small baby steps ahead you will climb highest summits of success one day.

  • Comparison: One mistake I did was I compared myself with others. I used to see what my friend did, how she read, what her strategies to read were and so on. In this muddle I messed up everything. My mind was seldom on my studies and kept on revolving and rotating around her.

Tip: Do not compare yourself with others. Try to recognize your own hidden potentials and nurture them. We may learn some good things from others. But, if we try to copy them we will lose our own identities and become like “Mimicry Apes”. I am sure you would not want to be like that. Therefore, try to respect yourself, harness you positive qualities and stop comparing yourself with others.

  • Lack of open-mindedness or open-minded thinking: All my life I wanted to become a Psychiatrist. But, I ended up being a Psychologist. I could not pursue Psychiatry because of financial concerns, lack of proper academic institutions in Psychiatry in my area and so on. Had I remained stubborn in my career aspirations, frankly speaking, I would not have landed anywhere. Like me, many people do the same mistake. They get stuck to only one dimension of a goal and close their eyes to other better options available.

Tip: Do not stick to a single option. There may be better choices or alternatives available. So, do not get stuck to a single entity. Be open-minded and develop a keen interest in everything.

  • Other reasons: Life sometimes takes unknown twists and turns and we are not always on the driver’s seat. Even after trying your level best, failure may still creep in. This is due to other invisible factors behind the scenes. Examples are: Someone plotting against you, situation not being favorable for you, and so on.

How to deal with failure:

When failure strikes you hard, it is obvious to feel sad and dejected. However this is not the end of the world. You may have failed this time, but you never know success would be already standing at your doorstep. So gear up your inner and outer entities to embrace success with the following tips:

  • When you fail, do not take it negatively. Instead try to learn from it. Analyze what exactly went wrong and what led to your failure. When you know the loopholes that made you to fall down, you can certainly fill the gaps while trying again.
  • Do not give up or quit. As I said before, maximum people fail because they give up in between. Failure does not come to humiliate you or pull you backwards. Instead, it comes to test you a bit more. It comes to tell you that you have a lot of potentialities hidden inside. So this is high time when you recognize your potentials and show failure that you can also succeed.
  • Do not listen to the bad words or humiliations of others. They have no other work that’s why they taunt you with their negative words. But, this is again a relative term. Some people taunt you deliberately because they wanna buck you up, lift up you spirits high and tempt you to fight back with even more force and fierceness. So this completely depends on your understanding and rational thinking. I would suggest you to do “selective listening” in such situations. Listen to those words you like or that would help you to succeed and put all other filthy words in the dust-bin.
  • Pave away negative thinking and make way for positive ones. I know how it feels to face failure and all the heart-churning experiences that come with it. That’s why I won’t tell you to stop thinking negatively. But, do not let it linger for a long time. You cannot move ahead unless you leave your past. The more time you take to come out of a failure, the more productive time you would waste.

Failure is just a part of life. It is never going to define your life in total. So, when you fail do not let your efforts and agonies go in vain. Instead, learn to transform these into positive energies to fight back again and come out successful in life. Always remember that:

“You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life.”
― Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Best Wishes,

Sareeta