I often hear things like “Failure is part of the process of learning. It is an opportunity to do better.” Of course, I strongly agree. But let’s be honest: failure is a miserable and frustrating feeling. I hate it so much. However, in a realistic sense, human beings aren’t perfect and are doomed to fail at one point or another.
Since we can’t fully avoid failure throughout our lives, we need to learn how to handle it. People have different perspectives on failure and different ways of dealing with it. For me, I have a few ways of coping with failure.
Whenever I face any kind of failure, I usually like to take a break. At first, I am always so disappointed and frustrated. As I said, I hate the feeling of failing. After feeling the impact and being down for a while, I like to reflect. Failure or not, I am someone who loves to reflect on things.
The first thing I do is take some time to think back, to figure out where and what went wrong. Sometimes, it is hard to pinpoint the exact cause—it might just seems like luck isn’t on your side, ha.
There is something I have learnt over the years, something I never used to consider before: Taking responsibility when faced with failure—especially when necessary. I used to reflect so I could find something or someone to blame for my failure.
“Oh, If hadn’t rained, I would have met up on time..”
”If they had sent me that book, I would have passed..”
It is always hard to learn from my failures when I fail to admit or take responsibility them. When I blame something else for my failure, I automatically tell myself that it wasn’t my fault, and therefore, there is nothing to learn from failing.
Learning from failure is the best way to make use of it. Failure has already happened, but when you fail to learn from it, it becomes another failure. Maybe taking responsibility for one’s failures might not work for everyone, but for me, it definitely helps me learn from my mistakes.
Now, I can look from a different perspective and learn, so when I am faced with the same problem that caused me to fail, I won’t make the same mistake again. I can now turn off every external factor and focus on my own actions.
“Oh, what if I had carried a raincoat? I would have..” I can learn from this that during the rainy season, I should try my best to carry a raincoat.
”If had asked her if she had any book that could help, I would have passed...” I can learn from this that I should ask someone if they have any extra book that could help.
Although, to be honest, there are times when we just can’t just figure out where it went wrong, but we just need to try again and try harder.
Lastly, for me, sometimes I conclude it is just not meant to be and that I was probably heading in the wrong direction. Just like when I tried this get into a university. The first university I applied to—I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. I had good results and all, but it was still a failure. But I am super glad I didn’t get into that university because I was heading in the wrong direction; there was a better option and I am now happy with where I am.
So, basically, sometimes I handle failure as a sign and to try another way. In a nutshell, we all have faced failure at one point in our lives, and we all have our own ways of handling it.
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All images are mine.
