Failure and how you guys deal with it
Curious how you guys handle failure. Whether professionally, women, friends, how to be a better person, etc.
Just been going through some shit and this is how I've tackled failure in my life.
1) Accept that I failed to achieve my goal. Let my emotions out - get a good cry out when I'm by myself if I need to. Sometimes a little breather if necessary.
2) Be honest with myself. Hone in on what the fuck went wrong.
- Was it due to lack of effort?
- Was I overconfident?
- Was i inefficient?
- What could I have done differently that would've been more effective as hindsight 20:20
- Did I learn a better route?
- Did I burn out?
All these issues I will connect the why to them. i.e. If I was inefficient, why was I inefficient? What parts of my day led to me not reaching my maximum potential? I.e. FB, chatting
If I cannot diagnose the issue by myself, I will personally find someone who is excelling in this area who I also trust and ask them to critique me as honestly as they can. I try to check my ego at the door but it'll stick its head out eventually. Regardless I bite my tongue and tell them to just call it like it is.
Sometimes this requires multiple people to critique me to get valuable perspectives. I try to use an honest opinion and really distill out relevant information from them. Sometimes it leads to arguments since I can be stubborn as shit, but I hash this shit out.
3) Assess if this is that important? Usually it is or I wouldn't go through this reflection.
4) Research. Time to independently confirm the advice I was given. Question authority. Don't just agree.
5) Come up with my own solution that is based on what I learned from others and on my own.
6) Get back up. It's time to implement.
7) Execute the plan relentlessly -
8) If I fail again, rinse wash and repeat -- fine tuning my shortcomings.
Probably self explanatory and not that useful but this is forum is therapeutic for me sometimes to write my thoughts out. Failure is a tough pill to swallow but honestly the shame of giving up taste so much worse for me. This shit simply doesn't work if you cannot accept input though or have a good eye of being as objective as possible. By all means, anyone and everyone please chime in.
That's super thorough- pretty impressive that you have such a solid structure//process for dealing with failure. I think the big thing that pops into my head right now is just the following:
If you are failing- you're obviously doing something right... Even if it doesn't seem like it at first.
The fact of the matter is that if you are failing, particularly if you are failing at something you want super badly, you are, whether you recognize it or not, succeeding 100% at going after your deepest desires unapologetically and that is something that I don't think the majority of people do.
This isn't meant to make us feel better (because it won't- especially if it was something we wanted badly) but it is meant to make sure that we are able to separate that aspect of it, from the pain of the failure itself, and not accidently lump it all together and create a pattern of avoiding our goals.
Again, I would point back to mindfulness as a great tool for dealing with failure. Notice the trigger- first and foremost notice the event, recognize it as the dissapointment that it is, notice the emotiosn etc. etc. and just make a consciosu effort to actively get back on the horse IMMEDIATELY. Whatever the failure is- big or small. I think one of the biggest thigns is to make a CHOICE to get back on the fucking horse, immediately. DO NOT let yourself feel sorry for yourself.
You can feel the emotions and absoltuely give yourself time to grieve... but life goes the fuck ON. Double down on efforts to eat healthy//workout//meditate. Double down on whatever it was you wanted. Take care of yourself first and foremost, and then go after whatever it was you wanted again. if the exact option you wanted is no longer available, then go after the next best one- and don't fucking settle. Find the REAL next best option, and don't let yourself settle.
Open yourself to the potential of that rejection again, because it means you're still alive. You may be temporarily broken, and that's okay - life does that to all of us. But you're coming at it again and again and again, and again and again and again and again. And you will succeed. You will also fail again. But you will succeed, and you won't settle.
Yeah everything you said was 100%. Honestly it's just developed over time through constant failing and trying to figure out how to correct my mistakes. Yeah, I had my biggest hiccup couple months back. Shit was hopeless for about 1-2 months until I snapped out of it and honestly my roommate threw down some real advice and just said pretty much exactly what you said how life goes on. Though the way he put it just resonated so well with me.
His words were:
"Bro ... no matter what happen, when I was in your situation last year ... literally I felt the same way. Wanted to just pack up and call it quits. But guess what - you realize you're too deep and more importantly ...... You still have to wake up every day, man. Whether you like it or not...... So get back to it because this shit isn't over."
So much clarity arrived from that quote. Doubled down, and we'll see how the efforts turned out in a month or so. If not, back to the drawing board to tweak what went wrong so I can get it right. Relentlessly.