How To Learn From Failure

There is an artistic discipline to failing. It is often avoided, rarely sought, and poorly taught by even the best teachers. But as children, this is something we understand implicitly. A baby does not curse itself when they try to stand and fall flat on the ground. They dust themselves off and try to stand again. Failing as an adult is rarely so undramatic. 

What do babies understand that we don’t? If we can figure out how to cope with the sting of failure, we can learn from our mistakes and clutch victory even from within the jaws of defeat. If we cannot avoid failure, how do we do it with grace? 

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Winston Churchill

Coping With The Sting Of Failure

Our first and most immediate concern when we don’t succeed is often a wash of negative emotions. These negative reactions can feel never-ending, exhausting, and involuntary, but in reality there is a lot we can do in the moment to manage them. If we take the time to cope with the negative feelings stirred up by failure, we can move beyond our failures rather than be defined by them. 

• Manage Your Anxiety In The Moment. When things get scary, what do you know will help you calm yourself down? We each have a unique toolkit for coping with our anxiety, some of us more so than others. The next time you find yourself facing down failure-induced anxiety, have the right coping tool on-hand! 
• Cut Back On Negative Self-Talk. Failure is bad enough, but the way we talk to ourselves afterward can be actually devastating. It can become quite the vicious cycle. We berate ourselves for failing, believe the story we’ve told about ourselves, get so upset that it impacts our performance, and then wind up failing once more. Negative self-talk is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I do have good news: positive self-talk can be a self-fulfilling prophecy too. 
• Know When To Let Go. Human beings are not wired to quit easily. The sunk-cost fallacy has driven many dedicated humans down the road of discomfort, disappointment, and ultimately failure. But knowing the right time to let go can allow you to learn the lessons from failure without getting bogged down by activities and projects that weigh you down. 

“Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.”

Jeff Bezos

Can You Learn To Accept Failure? 

Nobody likes to fail. Many of us dislike it so much that the concept of accepting our failures can feel foreign, insincere, or even impossible at first blush. Is it possible to accept failure even when we don’t approve of it? 

• Practice Radical Acceptance. There are some things in life that are unfortunately out of our control. No matter how skilled or careful we are, failure is an unavoidable aspect of the human experience. If something is truly out of our control, then our options are to accept it or suffer. 
• Build Your Resilience. Resilience is the act of standing back up when you’ve been knocked down. It is hard to learn and tough to master, but with effort and guidance, resilience is a valuable skill to have in your toolkit as we come to terms with failure.
• Resist The Urge To Blame. What’s happened in the past is often better left there. The urge to blame often leaves us ruminating on what could have been rather than seeing what still could be. Fight the urge to renegotiate a past that’s already dead and buried. 
• Recognize The Inner Critic. Your inner critic means well, they just can be a bit of a jerk by nature. This can be helpful to us when we need to recognize our own mistakes, but often we are our own harshest critic to the point of self-sabotage. If we can recognize when your inner critic is being a hindering bully, we can better listen when your inner critic is being a helpful guide. 

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

How Can Failure Be A Good Thing? 

Failure is not an ending, it is an inevitable step in our continuing story. If we can cope with the stresses of failure, come to accept its presence in our lives, and learn the lessons it’s here to teach us, we can find growth through failure rather than shame. 

• Try Again (Except This Time, You’ll Know When You’re Doing Something Wrong). They say that failure is the greatest teacher. This is only if you choose to be failure’s student. If you respond to failure with dejection, defeat, and detachment, then some of your most important lessons will often go unheeded. When we get back on the horse that bucked us, we are armed with the hard-won knowledge of failure.
• In Failure, Our Strength Is Tested. Unconscious competence becomes conscious ability only when we are tested. Failure is just as much a test of our abilities as the things we fail to do. Even if we fail to reach the peak of the mountain, we are tested by the strenuous climb back down.
• We Open Our Hearts. The greatest teachers in the world are those that have failed, learned, and returned that wisdom to the world that taught it to them. In defeat, we open our hearts to the failure of others. We learn the pitfalls, and unlearn the assumptions that could lead anyone else to disaster. Failure is not just an opportunity to learn, it is how we learn how to teach others.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” 

Maya Angelou

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Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.