How To Change Your Perspective On Failure
Failure hurts, you know that. It did when you got a bad mark in 4th grade, and it does now when you ask someone out and they answer that they didn’t find you interesting enough. Every time you fail at something, you shrink.
When you fail:
1. You feel that you are not worth much
You give your best at something, and it doesn’t turn out as you planned. You feel that your self-worth is diminished. You believe that you are not good enough for a particular job or person. You reduce your value.
2. You fear getting back up
After you fail, you may not feel like you want to get back up and fight again. You might want to withdraw into yourself, crawl into your bed and sleep 18 hours. The idea of going ahead gets much scarier. “What if I fail again?”, “What if I cannot be the person I always wanted to be”. You start to beat yourself down.
3. You get judged
People love to criticize, maybe saying how they warned you to not do that particular thing or how you are dumb and that you should have never tried in the first place.
But all of these points lack one thing: perspective.
The reason why failure hurts so much is that you give it the wrong meaning. You are taught since when you were a child that you should not fail. This creates the association in our minds that failure is negative, but this couldn’t be further from the truth.
How do you change your perspective?
1. Realize failure doesn’t really exist
Failure does not exist. How do you define failure? If you don’t get people’s approval or if you don’t get what you want. But if you are doing what you love out of passion, and not out of need, the journey and work themselves are your main source of happiness. You never fail, you just show up. You might then go through different outcomes, but they are equal, because they all have their unique value.
2. Failure is your biggest teacher
You can either “succeed” or “fail”, but you will always earn more than you lost. If things go how you expected, you got what you wanted. If they don’t, you learn a precious lesson. Failure is here to let you understand what you are doing wrong, how you can improve and what you can do better.
3. Failure lets you love yourself
Whenever things are fine, you might get caught up in our activities and even get a bit off track. When you fail, you have to reconsider many factors in your life. You are put in front of all the problems that you were hiding from. This is a great change to revalue what is important to you, and switch your focus from the things that you don’t care about to those that actually matter. You also get the chance to be closer to you, your feelings, your needs. You can approve of yourself just for what you are, not for what you do or what you achieved.
It’s easy to smile when things go as planned, but if you smile through hard times, you demonstrate true strength. That smile can only come from the love and affection that you give yourself.
Once you understand the value of failure, you begin to appreciate it. You are grateful for it because it is your main source of wisdom and your truest master.
You understand your weaknesses and your strengths, and you can work on them.
When you fail, you are given the opportunity of getting rid of what is no more useful for you.
Every time you fail, you become a better version of you.
Learn to regard failure as a friend, and it will not hurt anymore.
Francesco Fico is an Italian Med Student, who is passionate about inner discovery and unlocking one’s full potential. He loves psychology and philosophy and tries to apply them to his life to learn more about himself and others. Writer on Medium, he has an Instagram page and makes videos on YouTube. He writes about growth and happiness, motivating people to become a better version of themselves every single day.
