Healthy Ways to Cope With Failure

It is believed a person who does nothing can never fail. As very rightly said by Confucius - our greatest glory is not in ever failing, but in rising every time we fail. Failure is nothing but a stepping stone to success. “Many of life’s failure are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” as said by Thomas Edison. How true Edison was. Science would just have not come with so many discoveries and we would have been living in the stone-age had we not experimented and moved ahead in life in spite of failures. The most important point being is the determination to learn from our mistakes and proceed. There comes a point in everyone’s life when one will be at the crossroad of failure when one’s job, business or health isn’t resulting in what one wants and things start moving in the negative direction. This is where determination comes in and the person has to be strong-willed, take a decision to face defeat or failure and move on or to go down in self-defeat. Though it is not easy to accept but one must move on.  Some of the best healthy ways to cope with failure and move on are indicated below:

1. Accept what has happened. Never hold back your feeling or emotions as it can detrimental to your health leading to a mental problem, impact your sleep, future thinking and negate your response to the others around you. Blaming oneself is the easiest, but it leads nowhere. Acceptance of the issue removes a lot of problems giving clarity of thought for future actions.

2. Look at the situation in a different way, to put it in another way is to re frame the problem. Failure is subjective, so you can try and understand the reason of not being successful. This will help give you a positive outlook and positive thinking rather than going down with it.

Also read: Self Motivation Tips

3. Stop over thinking on the problem like a cassette replaying in your head. It will lead you to nowhere except obsession. Do meditation, it will release your negative feelings and lead you to positive thinking and help retain a positive frame of mind.

4. Set realistic future goals after having contemplated seriously on the issues. This will help provide a clear future plan towards success and your new goal. You can discuss with people close to you for the correctness of the plan, striking a proper balance between optimistic thinking and realistic planning.

5. The realistic goals once set, recognize obstacles between you and the realistic goals. More so, it is the right approach, as it will help you mentally to get rid of unrealistic, unattainable goals and keep you on the right track away from negativity and fear of failure.

6. With the new approach framed, brainstorm for good and sturdy ideas, checking for the resources available to put the new realistic approach into practice and methods to overcome the obstacles en route the right and correct path. Keep a check on your progress when you move from one step to the next. Feel free to change your approach, after proper rethinking, if in doubt at any stage in pursuit of your realistic approach.

7. Ensure no repetition of the same mistakes, avoid any method which led to failure during the last time, however luring or shorter it may be.

Also read: Benefits of learning from mistakes

8. Always make a plan B, as at times certain unforeseen flaws in your realistic approach may cause uncalled for complications. Thus always keep a back-up plan in mind in worst case scenario.

9. Surround yourself with positive people on the path to progress.

10. Try to look at some success stories of people, who had achieved success over a span of time, in spite of having experienced failures. Always remember not all are born successful, people fight with themselves to overcome their weaknesses and achieve success.

11. While dealing with your failure, the most important is to prevent the budding of irrational beliefs about yourself like “I can never succeed” or “I am useless”.  So if you believe you are not lucky or smart, you are mistaking yourself. Greatness is about determination and hard work. Such thoughts only make you afraid of facing failure and thus reduce your will power. Positive words always encourage you not only emotionally but also mentally, thus enhancing your motivation and helping you to stand firm in crisis.

These are some of the best healthy ways to cope with failure and also some of the best personality development tips.

It was aptly stated by Collin Powell, “There are no secrets to success. It is a result of preparation, hard work and learning from failures.”  So do not give up, maybe taking one more step would have opened a new door. Unfortunately, many people give up. Don’t be one of them, overcome failure. The successful people understand that failure is just an obstacle, a hurdle they will overcome. Failure is nothing but just one step closer to success.