I feel like this is something that doesn't get talked about much, and am interested to see how everybody deals with failure, be it on an academic, professional, or personal level, and if this varies from culture to culture. Do you move on and forget about it, do you learn and change from it, etc.
I tend to get angry at myself and mull over mistakes at the end of the day, until I figure out a way to prevent the same thing from happening again.
In my line of work, I have to make presentations on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. Sometimes my presentations are not well received and sometimes they are. No matter the reception, I do the same thing at the conclusion each time. I head to my car and I immediately take stock of what just occurred, what did I do right, what did I do wrong? What could I have done differently? Self assessment is important during times of failure but what most people don't realize is that it's equally important during times of success -perhaps more important.Do you move on and forget about it, do you learn and change from it, etc.
This depends on the situation. Sometimes things/people fail for a reason. If you take a serious look at the reason for the failure you can either modify your approach or come to the conclusion that it failed because it is irrevocably flawed.
I could not agree more. Too often I find myself and other characterizing failure and getting too emotional about it, and I get too excited by success. The most important way to receive failure is as feedback, because anything else will either scare you off or make you repeat the mistakes that made it a failure. It's much harder to figure out why something went well than why something went wrong, I've been finding.
The healthiest view of failure is also the most clichéd view of it. There are ample quotes out there along the lines of "Failure is merely another step on the journey towards success" and even though I'm sure we're all sick of them by now, they do have truth in them. When you fail, brooding about it or wallowing in it won't do much good - even though those always look like the most gratifying options at the time. No, the best option is always to just pick yourself up and try again/keep going. "Nunc Coepi."
Or, from a popular cartoon:The road to wisdom? — Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
- Piet HeinDude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something.
- Jake, 'Adventure Time'.
I agree but sometimes it really is wise to realize that the failure may have occurred because the idea is inherently flawed. Pick yourself up -great idea. Keep going -maybe, but perhaps in a completely different direction.
True, there's that. Maybe - if you fail many times, repeatedly - it is wise to reconsider your methods, and to reassess your situation. Many great feats have required umpteen failures to achieve, however, and if people just gave up or changed their mind after the first dozen of them then these great feats would never have been grasped. There is a thin line between determination and stubbornness maybe.
I try to take it out with some relatively common stress-management techniques. Depending on how much importance I put on something, I can really be unhappy if I fail. From the front end, I try to reduce my expectations: if for instance I'm submitting a poem or piece of work to a magazine or journal for submission, I make sure that I know I've put in the most work I can do to make the piece "great." Then I remind myself that even if I think that's the case, others may not, so I try to understand I might end up getting rejected - or failing - and it doesn't have to have anything to do with the quality of the project I'm submitting. Maybe the journal is looking for other types of pieces, maybe I really am not advanced enough...but if you take away whatever "maybes" or "I should've..."s right from the start that helps. Then I try to take my mind off of it! First and foremost for me is exercise. Especially if I am really stressed I'll go for a run or maybe lift some weights. I try to spend time relaxing and doing things I enjoy (Hubski, for one! watching TV shows) and removing myself from the source of the stress. If I've done everything I could have possibly done to succeed and I don't, I can't beat myself up over it. No one's perfect. Finally I try to look at what failed, and why, and determine what I can learn from it. In some cases you will never know. It is very rare for anyone to tell me why they rejected a poem I submitted to a journal; they just don't have the time. So that's not a good example. But for instance if I get negative feedback about my job, I'll try to figure out what is causing me to act in such a way - what is causing the failure - and how I can improve to avoid it next time.
Mistakes and failure are simply part of our imperfect perfection. For happiness to exist, every now and then we have to fail and be upset so that we appreciate our happiness that much more. I believe that everything happens for a reason, for the better or the worse. What's happened has happened, so why get bummed out about it. More often than not, you'll live. So why get too bogged down by it? Hakuna Matata (it means no worries, for the rest of your days). I'm not saying I'm perfect and that I come to this conclusion immediately though. At first yeah I'll be upset. But every cloud has a silver lining. Once you get over the initial hump of becoming aware of that lining, things are smooth sailing.
Everybody is being so... positive about failure. I don't really understand it. Of course I learn from what I have done wrong, but I hate failing. I strive to never fail in anything I do in my life. When I do fail I am quite upset. I may stress about it, but really what failure is to me, is drive. It pushes me to get angry, to get upset, and to try again until I fix it or get it right. I like the passion that comes from failure, allowing me to rise from it.
Not going to say it doesn't upset me, but I do my level best to be thankful for it. Failure is a gift, because when I fail it means I'm not yet the best I can be, and I'm not lazily sticking to things that are easy for me to accomplish, either. If I stopped failing, then I would be looking at a very sad and boring rest of my life where I didn't have anywhere left to grow or anything left to learn or any challenges to overcome. Or, I would have become a coward who doesn't take risks. I hate failing. I sometimes lie in bed feeling like I'm going to vomit and going over it over and over again. I don't like to talk about it, and I often don't share risks I'm taking with my friends so that I won't have to tell them if I fail. But I have to stop, think, and be grateful for the failure, or I wouldn't ever get back OUT of bed and keep taking risks. There's a church down the street with a labyrinth (not minotaur style, it's just a maze made of stones) that I sometimes go pace around muttering to myself about the gift of still being in a growth state so that I can fail.