Nobody likes the idea of failure, especially when you’re striving for success. Failure is necessary to grow and learn from your mistakes. You can’t live your life with the constant fear of failure otherwise, you aren’t living at all.
When you learn to overcome failure, this is the only time when you’re on your road to success. You can’t accomplish your goals when you’re afraid of making mistakes – it doesn’t work that way.
Rather, you succeed by failing and getting back up. In this article, we’ll be talking about 11 key ways on how to overcome failure in life.
How to Cope With Failure
You cope with failure by having the confidence and self-esteem to rise and try harder. Failure and mistakes are growth opportunities and to become better. Instead of dwelling on your failure, use it to become the best version of yourself.
You can’t be better if you don’t fail, every now and then. Face the reality that you failed and keep trying until you finally get it right.
Remember your resilience and strength, and use that to keep fighting, no matter if the odds are against you. You cope with failure by not letting it defeat your spirit and continuing to rise, no matter how many times it takes. If you fall 8 times, you get up 9 – that’s how you cope with failure.
11 Key Ways to Overcome Failure in Life
1. Embrace your emotions
Everything that you feel when you fail, use that to motivate yourself even further. If you feel angry, shameful, or resentful, use this pain to drive yourself to success the next time around. Just because you fail, doesn’t mean your story’s over.
2. Recognize unhealthy coping mechanisms
There are various ways to cope with failure, unfortunately, the most common way is to shut off your feelings or diminish it. Whether it’s through distractions, alcohol, or drugs, recognize what you’re doing and just let yourself be.
3. Practice healthy habits
You can always develop healthy habits to cope with failure such as talking to a friend, working out, or anything that helps you work on yourself rather than sabotage yourself. While self-sabotaging is easy, it’s better to find healthy habits.
4. Acknowledge wrong beliefs about failure
You may have this perception that failure means you’ll never amount to anything or that you’re worthless. Recognize these limiting beliefs and find a way to let them go. Having these mindsets may encourage you to sabotage yourself rather than improve yourself.
5. Change your mindset about failure
Instead of focusing on what you lost, focus on the opportunity given to you with failure. Pain is always an opportunity for growth and this goes the same for failure. Rather than wallowing in self-pity, work on yourself and learn from your mistakes to succeed next time. Realize that your failure never has and never will define you, no matter what.
6. Take accountability
Once you’ve shifted your mindset, this is where you can start taking accountability for your actions. Reflect on the decisions and events that led to your failure and learn from these things. Take accountability and make sure that you don’t repeat the same mistakes that led to your failure. Change strategies if you must.
7. Research examples of failures
You’ll be surprised to know that successful individuals had to go through various failures to succeed. Whether it’s Steve Jobs or Walt Disney, look it up and use it as inspiration that if they accomplished it, the same can go for you.
8. Learn from it
You can learn so much from failure so you can’t say that you regret it. There are so many lessons you can apply in your life when you reflect on it. It may hurt to look back on, but failure can always help you grow into someone better. Without failure, you’ll constantly be thinking that success is easy – which it’s not.
9. Execute plans into action
Once you’ve learned the necessary lessons from your failure, this is where action is necessary. Actions speak louder than words and you need to get back up and try again, taking into consideration everything you’ve learned in failure.
For instance, when you’ve failed a job interview, always try again and avoid doing the same mistakes from the past.
10. Face your fears
Failure is a valid fear, but it shouldn’t control you. A lot of people are afraid to face their fear of failure, which leads to even more failure. Don’t be afraid to start fresh and keep trying, no matter what your mind is telling you.
11. Build your confidence
To effectively cope with failure, build your confidence so that if and when you face failure again, your spirit won’t be crushed to the point of no return.
By building your self-esteem, you’ll be more capable of dealing with failure.
Why Accepting Failure is Beneficial
Failure helps you grow into a much better person, with the lessons you can learn from it. While failure can provide discomfort and pain, it’s necessary for our journey to success.
You can’t expect to accomplish your goals by being scared to confront your fear of failure. You’ll make mistakes and fail repeatedly in your journey to success, and that’s okay.
What matters is that you did everything in your capabilities to cope with failure and become stronger to rise back up again.
Failure may be frustrating, but it’s the best opportunity to grow into someone capable of achieving their life goals.
Final Thoughts
I hope this article was able to shed insight into everything you needed to know on how to overcome failure. Remember that failure isn’t always a bad thing.
Unfortunately, it may be necessary if you truly want to succeed in life, whether it’s in your career, relationships, or another aspect.
Failure isn’t always a bad thing – discomfort is how you can get out of your comfort zone and live your life. By experiencing failure, you become stronger in all aspects and you get the motivation to try even harder.