Everyone knows the bitter taste of failure, but it feels unique each time. In a career, with friends, or with goals in life, rejections are never fun to encounter. Still, the art of handling failure is amongst the most influential teachings one can come across in life turning the most difficult passages into opportunities. As Thomas Edison said one day about his invention “I have not failed.” He said he had just discovered 10,000 ways it would not work.
Recover from Failure: A Stepping Stone to Success
The first strategy used to contain handling failure is to redefine it. Instead of seeing it as negative as well as encapsulation, find it as a process in your experience. Studying people who are comfortable with the notion of failure being the failure of trial and error, research done at the University of California, Berkeley indicates that such group of people are 35% more productive in the long run.
Tip: Instead of dwelling on why something has happened to us, we must focus on what we can get from it.
Accepting and Processing Emotions
Recognizing your emotions especially after being defeated is paramount. While one might choose to suppress feelings as a product of personal preference or the circumstances, pent-up stress results in one getting easily stressed out and burnt out on the other hand, the expression of such emotions is found to clear one’s mind to ensure that they reflect erroneously.
Did You Know? The American Psychological Association has also found out that journaling failures can lower stress by 20% more.
It is wholly permissible to experience a meditative form of grief; however, it is important not to dwell on it. The essence lies in learning how to enjoy appropriate venting off of emotions without being destructive.
Set Realistic Goals
Inadequate performance at work often originates from high expectations. This makes small goals derived from large ones and thus reduces work pressure from unmanageable chunks.
Example: Daily goals should be based on saving money not on establishing an account, as “I want to be a millionaire in a year”.
This approach relieves pressure and at the same time, creates a positive momentum when you are getting the little successes you work for.
Build a Support System
Failure is often blamed, but so is comparing handling failing alone with being alone. Seek out people who can be accountable to us, or find reasons to quit, or a person who could hold our hand, motivate us, and keep us on track.
Stat Fact: A recent study that was conducted on individuals from Harvard was carried out to establish the relation between supportive supervision and the success rates of individuals after failure It was revealed that people with supportive supervision enjoy an enhanced probability of an increase in their success rates after failure by 60%.
You also get to hear from other people and get a different perspective and maybe be reminded there is still a silver lining to everything.
Learn from the Greats
Every day we come across examples where a particular candidate has transformed their defeat into victory. Walt Disney was fired for ‘not being original enough’ and Oprah Winfrey had failed in her first job as a television interviewee. These are the kind of stories coming from survivors that all show how vital it is to never give up.
Actionable Insight: One is expected to read biographies of these successful people, especially at those times when one feels demoralized.
Embrace Growth Mindset
That is why a growth mindset—the conviction about the developability of abilities through effort, hard work, etc.—is critical in the processes connected with failure. According to Carol Dweck, a psychologist, individuals who have grown mindsets are always stronger in their perseverance.
Mantra to Remember: These words collaborating with the annotations of many philosophical works convey the appreciation of failure as Cabaness and colleagues discussed, as “every failure is a rehearsal for success”.
Conclusion
A loser is not a nonentity but more so a ladder to success. When accepting invitations, dealing with stress and other negative feelings, understanding that failures are realistic, and asking for support, you are choosing to learn from failure.
It can only be said that handling failure is fundamentally about perseverance and flexibility. This is good to remind ourselves because the biggest wins generally come from the losses on the battlefield. Therefore, keep on working — your answer might be a step or two away.