We live in a culture dominated by stories of success. We see it everywhere we turn — on TV, in magazines, online, in the daily newspaper. Entire generations are growing up thinking they cannot fail. That success isn’t just the result of doing well, it is a guarantee that we can reach any goal we set.
Now I’m all for optimism, don’t get me wrong. But as a pragmatist, I can’t help but sprinkle a little reality into an optimist’s dreams.
You will fail at some point in your life. You will be fired from a job you care about, or be rejected by a partner in a relationship you thought had a future. You will suffer from doing too much, or doing too little, all of which won’t matter. You will be rejected by something or someone you really want. And it will hurt. It might even hurt like hell.
What do you do now?
First, understand that failure or rejection doesn’t mean the end of the world. We humans have a way of generalizing things to be larger than they really are. When we are rejected or fail at a goal we set for ourselves, it often feels like it was something very personal — “I am a bad person, I suck. I can’t even do this one thing.” We turn it into something that it isn’t.
Don’t get over it right away. Too many “experts” say you just need to “learn from the experience” and move on. While that’s ultimately true, that’s not going to help in the moment of failure or rejection.
Embrace the feeling — feel bad for yourself. Cry. Talk to your friends about how much it stinks you didn’t achieve your goal. This is all a part of a grief process — the process of losing something you really wanted. You have to come to terms with the loss on your own time, and in your own manner.
Then, move on and understand that as trite as it is to say it, you can’t have a life filled only with good experiences. Sure, we all want to maximize those and minimize the bad, but most of it is out of our control. Decisions made by others are not something we can change — we can only influence them. Once made, we have to accept them even when they don’t go our way. Bad experiences put good experiences in sharp perspective.
Failure can also act as a great motivator for the future. Don’t want to fail again? There are times where you can actually change the future based upon what you learn from failure. For instance, if you fail an exam, more often than not the reason might be found in your study habits (or lack thereof). If a relationship goes bad, are there things that you could’ve done differently to have helped it? While it may not help in the present situation, it may give you some guidance for future situations.
Most of the time, the lesson you can learn from a failure or rejection isn’t something you’re going to recognize right away. It may takes weeks or even months to see the meaning behind the rejection or failure.
Of course, not every failure or rejection has something to teach us. Sometimes we get laid off from a job because of a bad economy. It has little to do with us. It still hurts of course, but it’s not your fault. If you don’t get the promotion or into the college you wanted, it may also be other factors beyond your own personal characteristics as well (such as the sheer number of people vying for the position). There are failures where I learned a lot from, and then there are failures that had little to teach me.
Failure and rejection are a part of everybody’s life. The key is not to overgeneralize a situation or personalize it inappropriately (two common cognitive distortions). Embrace failure, accept it as a part of a normal life, and take away something (if there’s something to take away) that you can use to your advantage in the future.
Read the Boston Globe editorial that inspired this entry: Failure: A lesson worth teaching
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One of my favorite quotes comes from Henry Petroski, PhD, PE: “If we copy success, the eventual result is going to be failure. We don’t often understand fully why successful designs work. And they often mask potential failures. No matter how closely we follow successful models, designing something new involves new conditions that require changes in the design.” — in an interview with Jeff Stein, AIA, Architecture Boston (May/June 2007).
Petroski (author of Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design, Princeton University Press, 2006) was talking about engineering, but for me his quote holds a universal appeal. Following the beat of one’s own drummer courts failure. Exploring new avenues and improvising court failure. But taking the well-trodden, “safe” path — the “successful” path — also courts failure. I remind myself of that whenever I’m feeling risk-averse.
Hi, just the other day walking through home depot, I saw some wheel barrels, it hit how my attitude from the first time pushing one and the last time and the times in between.
The last time using one something was making it feel like work. The other times I was having fun with it, as if it were a toy. What changed?
Now, I’m working on getting that childlike attitude back, the one where failure or success doesn’t matter, give 100% and have fun while doing it. Its not what going on around you! Its what you are doing while things are going on around you.
My mental state was so severe there wasn’t any mental ability to connect with money, material things or fame (recognition) or to hang on to anything to remember,
Since I lacked the mental ability to know failure from success and not being able to feel fear, I was always trying something new without thinking. “I’m going to try something new.” I would just find myself doing something new.
So, I want to share with you from having over 45 jobs in four different states and traveling around the U.S., not one single business had it all figured out to where everything I saw made sense.
When I came back from traveling in 2007, I felt this need to tell my family and friends to stop investing and work on getting your money back out of the stock market.
When you are able to connect like I do, then you will be able to understand how to let your imagination, five senses and that inner ability given to you at birth work for you, which you have lost due to using your mind too much for everything. Learn how to use your five senses with an open mind and figure it out by not thinking. You don’t have to get an answer right then, let it come to you. This is a much deeper ability of the brain, where the mind is more on the surface, where it relies on memory, experience, skills and knowledge.
Do you know how many times I have heard from an owner, manager,supervisor or up manage say things like, how did you do it, or how did you that, or what did you do, or what you did in 11 months would have taken most guys 5 years.
Two psychologist one from 1967 and one from 2004 both confirmed my mental state as retarded, even my psychologist said. “I don’t know how you did it! But, you have been able to rewire your brain. So, how is it that I have the ability to walk into any business and before to long showing them how to do something right or improve on something. “I showed a 38 year old franchise Wendys a better and safer way to filter their oil.
You have the ability to do well at anything you do, just stop thinking and just let it happen. If, you get a thought or think about what you are doing or think about anything else. You have to tell yourself STOP, now go back to what you were doing and keep telling yourself to stop, before long your brain will get the message.
One more thing, the first time at doing anything, you are 100% focused, but, the more you do it, the easier it get will allow you to think about other things not related to the work. This is when you are going to level off and your job performance will drop also.
I have had too many jobs where it was so easy to move up past people who had been there for over five, ten even fifteen years, simple due to them leveling off at their work. I find everything to be fascination to the point I am able to turn on my imagination and teach.
Whenever I think of failure I immediately think of Thomas Edison who would famously say about all his failures before inventing the light bulb: “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work”.In other words, it’s all a matter of perspective. You can say that ok you lost the battle but you will win the war. Or that any failure is really just a step towards success. You fail – you learn – you evolve – you do things differently the next time – and eventually you succeed.And what does it mean to succeed? When people talk about success they tend to think about “keeping up with the Joneses”, they think about the car they drive or the holidays they can afford even if they despise driving and prefer to stay home rather than travel.Isn’t success/failure really something extremely subjective and mostly a state of mind?
This seems like common sense, but it is a relief from too much of the strenuously upbeat advice out there. And a relief, too from what the media shows as success – which has everything to do with appearances. I think it is so important to do as you advise, and let people who are struggling – especially young ones – that you cannot avoid pain ( or dump it on someone else) when life throws you a punch to the gut, but you can survive it, and retain dignity. Once a Dr. did tell me something similar, spot on about a relationship problem: when you take an action, just because you feel pain at that moment, it doesn’t mean you’re doing the wrong thing. Still, while I could spout off a lot of terribly sane advice –I just couldn’t seem to follow it, so it takes a lot more than words, for most of us it takes support systems.
Evocative post by Andrew a.k.a Southern Fried Scientist: “The importance of failure in graduate student training.”
http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=11168
About his initial project’s failure, he writes, “[L]ooking back on those two years, I am thankful for that failure. It made me realize what the real cost of research is, resolved my commitment to the process of doing science, and left me with experience that could not be otherwise gained.”
Loved this article…as a therapist I have learned how not to rush the process…it’s not about feeling better-as-soon-as-possible…not takign the time to move through something ensures that it will remain “unfinished business” in our present. Well said!
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