Content

• To step
• Part 1 of 3: Coping with your failure with your feelings
• Part 2 of 3: Coping with failure by thinking about it
• Part 3 of 3: Recover

Overcoming failure is all about finding the strength within yourself to start over. First you will have to get rid of the feeling that you have failed. The failure of a project, your relationship, or another goal can overwhelm you in principle, but if you recognize that you are disappointed and accept your mistakes, then you will be able to move on. Realistic optimism will help you form a new plan without provoking failure for yourself. Remember, your long-term goal here is resilience - the ability to adapt and grow. Every failure is an opportunity to become stronger and wiser.

To step

Part 1 of 3: Coping with your failure with your feelings

1. Feel your emotions. When you feel like you have failed you can become a victim of self-blame, disappointment and despair. Bottling up your feelings of pain can have a negative effect on your health, your relationships, and your future success. Notice any emotion as soon as it occurs. Take time to name the emotion, such as anger, sadness, fear, or shame. This allows you to process it without taking it out on yourself or others.
   • Take time to process your feelings. If you try to undo or leave your disappointment before you know how you feel, you may be acting in a rush.
   • Suppressing painful feelings can lead to health problems, such as chronic pain, sleep deprivation and even heart complaints.
2. Accept what happened. After the initial shock of disappointment subsides, you can begin to work on the acceptance of what has happened. It will be harder for you to move on if you blame yourself or others, or if you pretend that what happened is not important or happened at all. Write down or think about everything that happened, what caused it, and what the consequences were. State only the facts, without charge, condemnation, or justification. Write this down in a journal, if you have one, or write a letter to yourself.
   • If writing isn't a useful way for you to express yourself, find someone to talk to. A trusted friend or family member, or a counselor, can help you stop denying.
   • Ask about the viewpoint of bystanders who were not emotionally involved in the situation. For example, a friend may have noticed early signs of cracks in a failed relationship.
   • If you are unable to move beyond denial - for example, you refuse to talk about or acknowledge what happened, or look at the way you contributed to the failure, or ignore the consequences of what has happened - then examine what is holding you back. What do you fear will happen if you admit failure? You may feel like a failure because your child has become addicted to drugs. Instead of doing something about it, you stay in denial and give her money to buy "clothes" while knowing she's spending it on drugs.
   • Identify fears that are irrational or exaggerated. Do you worry that failure will question your intelligence and ability? Do you feel that you are the only one who has experienced such setbacks and that they are being judged? Are you worried that everyone will be disappointed in you, or lose interest in you, if you don't succeed?
   • Think about the consequences of acting or not acting. What can you achieve by acting? What can be made worse by inaction? You may feel that your relationship has failed, and to avoid the pain of another divorce, refuse to date or investigate what went wrong in the relationship. Doing nothing may help protect yourself from rejection or the emotional pain of a breakup. It also means missing out on the fun and camaraderie of dating and turning your back on a potentially great relationship.

Part 2 of 3: Coping with failure by thinking about it

1. Do positive reframing / reframing. Positive reframing is all about recognizing the positives of any situation, even when it comes to failure. Look at the situation you feel you have failed and think about different ways to describe it. "Failure" is a subjective term. Instead of saying "I didn't get a job," you can say, "I haven't found a job yet" or "I've been looking for a job longer than I expected." Don't try to justify your failures, just name them without judging them, and look for the positive side of it.
   • Another way to frame the situation is to understand why your attempt was unsuccessful and then use that knowledge to try again. The only way you can find out what works is to find out what not works.
   • Failure gives you the opportunity to learn until you know how to do it.
   • Just think of all those athletes, scientists and other successful people who have tried and failed, but persisted until they reached their goal. Famous is the story of Michael Jordan who was kicked out of his school's basketball team just to work harder and become one of the greatest players of all time.
   • Use humor to encourage yourself when you are depressed: "Well, I haven't got a job yet, but I've gotten really good at writing cover letters." Seeing the humor in your situation makes it easier to step back and put things in perspective.
   • Humor is an important component of resilience: being able to laugh at yourself nicely will help you cope with the greatest setbacks.
2. Recognize negative thought patterns. Failure often involves a tendency to be angry with yourself, or even to name yourself. Learn to spot some of the most common negative thought patterns so that you can release them. These thoughts can be something like: all-or-nothing thinking ("It has to be perfect right away, otherwise I can stop"); doom thinking ("This is awful. There is no way I can get out of this"); or portray yourself negatively ("I am a failure and a charlatan.").
   • When you find these kinds of thoughts come to your mind, question them. They come from a negative, critical place. Instead, ask yourself, "Is this really true?" Look for evidence for and against these claims.
   • Write down an affirmation that goes against the negative comments about yourself. If you keep seeing yourself as a failure, write something like, "I'm a capable person" on a sticky note and stick it on your mirror. Say it out loud to yourself and you can start changing your negative thinking.
3. Stop ruminating about the failure. Do you find that you can't stop thinking about what happened, repeating it all the time in your head? This is called rumination and instead of providing insight into what you could have done differently or ways to improve, it only reinforces your negative feelings.
   • Keep a journal to stop obsessive thinking. Getting it out of your mind and on paper can break free from rumination and reveal underlying fears.
   • Instead of repeating it step by step in your head, stop and ask yourself, "Okay, what have I learned here?" You may have learned to leave 30 minutes early when you have an appointment so that you don't run late for your next interview.
   • Use meditation to take yourself back to the present. Mindful meditation helps you stop worrying about what happened in the past, focus on the here and now, and start asking yourself, what can I do? today do differently?

Part 3 of 3: Recover

1. Find out what caused the failure. What happened that made you deviate from your goal? Could it have been prevented? Think about the possible solutions you could have used and what the consequences would have been. Were your initial expectations unrealistic? Discuss the expectations you had with your loved ones and team members to see how realistic they were.
   • If you are unable to land an expected promotion at work, ask to meet with your manager to discuss where you have deviated from the right path. Just wait until you get past the initial emotional stages of your disappointment. Start the conversation with a particular idea where things could have gone wrong and with questions about further improvements you can make.
   • If you haven't managed to get the kind of job you were hoping for, read the online profiles of the people who do have such a job. Have they followed a different education than you? Do they have more experience? Did they come in at a different time?
   • If you are disappointed in love, ask yourself if you had unrealistic expectations of your partner and put an unusual amount of pressure on them. Did you understand how the other felt within the relationship? Did you support the other's projects and friendships?
2. Set realistic goals. Once you've identified the causes of your past disappointments, work on setting more realistic goals for the future. What would you like to happen as follows? What kind of actions of your own can increase your chances of success? Ask people you trust to measure how realistic your new goal is.
   • For example, if you've just run your first half marathon and have your mind set on running the 1500 meters in 7 minutes, you're probably overly ambitious. Try to set your goal for the next race so that you want to be just a little faster than the last time. If you do the 1,500 meters in 10 minutes, try to walk that distance in 9.7 minutes. Focus your training on that time.
   • If your previous goal was to publish a book at the end of the year, make your new goal a bit more modest. Your new goal may be to get feedback on your first draft. Sign up for book editing workshops, or hire a freelance editor or writing coach.
3. Exercise mental opposites. Look for the balance between optimistic thinking and realistic planning by using mental contrasts. First, imagine that your desired goal comes out exactly as you wanted it to. Imagine absolute success for 5 minutes. Then you change course and imagine all the obstacles that could arise. Imagining the obstacles to achieving reasonable goals can actually give you more energy and enable you to tackle the aforementioned problems. If the goal is unreasonable, however, then this exercise will likely allow you to let go of that desire and then focus on something more attainable.
   • Recognizing the obstacles between you and your goals should not be viewed as negative or unhealthy thinking. The mental contradiction exercise can help you not to cling to unattainable goals or to keep ruminating on what cannot be done.
4. Change your approach. Brainstorm ideas and select the idea that seems most concrete. Use mental contrasting to test the solution in your head first. Ask yourself if you have the resources to carry out your plan. What new problems may arise? How are you going to solve them? What needs to be ready before you can start?
   • Avoid repeating the same mistakes. Your new approach should not include any of the strategies that may have caused your previous approach to fail.
   • Create a Plan B. Even well-developed approaches can fail due to complications that you did not foresee. Get into the fray this time with a solid backup plan.
5. Try again. With your new goals and your new plan concretized, you can now start achieving your goal. Take the time to track your progress as each step unfolds. Feel free to change your approach. You learn as you go, and a natural part of this process is adjusting and tweaking your approach. Whether you reach the goal or have to try again, you will have gained more resilience.