Yep, we all go through it…in fact, if you haven’t failed at something, you haven’t learnt anything at all! It’s part of our everyday lives yet when we experience a failure, we believe that we are failures. Believing this narrative is what puts us in distress, which has a knock on effect on our overall mental and physical well-being. Let me show you what you can do if & when you fail:
- Understand that you can fail at something but it doesn’t mean you are a failure: There’s a big difference between the setback we experience when we fail and what we choose to call ourselves. Learning to separate the experience (failing at something) from yourself (who you are) releases the unnecessary strain we place on ourselves.
The differentiation here can save you from psychologically damaging the view of yourself. That said, as you practice this method of separation, it becomes easier to deal with failure and view it as a temporary state which takes me to the next point. - View failure as a temporary state, not permanent: When we hit a block, we often don’t see past it and assume everything is over at that moment. To paint a picture for you, imagine all the clocks in the world stopped ticking and positioned themselves at 00:00. Regardless, it doesn’t stop you from differentiating between light and dark in the morning and at night, sleeping, waking up, eating and much more. You didn’t just stand still without twitching or moving (motionless and still like a clock).
My point here is that, the time remained the exact same and/or stagnant but the cycle of life continued. This is because there is always a beyond and the analogy of “all things in our universe are constantly in motion i.e. everything vibrates”, provides a certain understanding that these moments of failure are not permanent.
My advice here is not to be too harsh on yourself as tempting as it can be to sometimes slip into the act. So take the break, cry, pause, reflect, do what you need to do — but whatever it is, don’t stay in that state for too long. You can read more on using the temporary but not permanent as a coping mechanism here. - Like a shadow, bring it to light by finding inspiration and starting again: When we fail at something, we leave it in the dark and sometimes, if not mostly, we just give up without attempting it again because it was either uncomfortable or took us out of our comfort zones. Here’s what I think can help put things in perspective for you if you fail at something:
- Revisit your why: Why did you start this in the first place? When you ask yourself this question, it will trigger the next question.
- Is it important to you?: If YES, then open yourself up to more learning and by that I mean through research, practice and also checking yourself. Checking yourself is a skill and this in itself will require you to strip off the ego self through constructive and honest criticism so that you can further better yourself. When you open up yourself to learning and allow yourself the opportunity to polish up your weaknesses, you are able to find inspiration which will boost your morale and steer you towards starting again. This time, it will be better and you will also feel better equipped.
- If NO, then when you fail, I hope you can understand that regardless, you have taken away an experience through learning from the mistake. Whether it’s important to you or not, you have gained something that can impact your life in one way or the other.
I hope these points have been helpful for you; here’s a reminder to take with you today.“ You are not a failure…you just have to try again even if it’s in a different way this time and nothing will ever be wrong with that”!
Thank you for reading.
Love & Light
Amida
