Dealing with Failure

Failure is something that we will all experience at some point. It’s natural, and is to be expected when you’re on a path to improvement. Anyone can fail at a task, whether it’s not beating a time in a race, having a gig go disastrously wrong, or something as small as adding too much flour in a cake. People fail every day in life, but that doesn’t define who they are as people.

The way we deal with failure is what truly defines us and is what makes us improve.

Instead of replaying the issue in your mind and mentally torturing yourself, look at it from a different angle. What was the main cause of the problem? Were you paying attention when it occurred? Was there another factor that affected that one? Once you have looked at it from these angles, you can find ways to fix them and ensure that they don’t happen again.

Taking it as a learning curve is something that will seem difficult soon after the situation has happened, but the earlier you can accept what has happened, the easier life will be for you and the better you will feel. Sure you’ll feel embarrassed for the first few hours, maybe days, but laughing about it and moving on only has positive benefits, where as reliving the moment in your head will rarely help your self esteem and attitude.

The situation has already happened, so look at the best way to go up from there.

Failure is a natural step to self improvement, if we didn’t fail then we wouldn’t know how to get better. It can be quite refreshing to have a bad experience, not only does it make you much more vigilant in the next scenario, but it also makes you aware of how often it can happen and will help you keep on top form when you’re going through life.

How to better your life

Do you want to look like the man in the photo? Everyone does, I mean look how happy he is, his life seems perfect, but how did he get there?

I think its important to have aims and priorities in life. There are times when I have no goals to hit, this is usually after I’ve just achieved something ive been working towards for a while and I think “now what?

This is my take on what to do when you’re in that position, hopefully it will give you a clearer, more direct approach to bettering yourself.

For the past few days I’ve been lost for what to do with myself. I’ve just finished my University course, and had to enter the “real” world of work. The course had given me a purpose of what I should do in my life, but now that’s gone, how do I move forward?

Simply put, only you can answer it. I’m sure you may have seen that in other posts on this sub, but that’s ultimately it. This could take 30 seconds, it could take 2 months, but the importance of it is the you are thinking about what you want to do. Transitioning from a purpose to having none is liberating in a sense. You are in control of your life. You choose what you want to do, and how you approach it.

The dissertation I worked on spoke a lot about career paths in my chosen field, and of all the subjects I spoke to, the majority said that they found pleasure in their emotional satisfaction to their jobs as opposed to their monetary value. Having a job you enjoy can, on its own, improve your perception and happiness through life. Though this is discussing a post graduates point of view, I feel it could be applied to anyone else, provided their work ethic is strong enough to strive for what they love.

But what about the money to live and survive? Yes this is something to consider, especially with a huge jump in the direction you want to go. Easterlin’s Paradox is something that came up in my research and was something that gave myself a little perspective. In brief, it analysed trends of money and happiness and whether they were related. Findings show that there is a threshold of where money provides happiness, and that is usually when the costs of food, water, housing, and safety are covered. After that, psychological areas such as friendships and well being will be the determining factor of your happiness.

To get to the point where you are working for a job you love and being financially stable you need to work. And hard. This is the first stumbling block for most, because they don’t know where to start. My advice: Take a pen and paper to a place you find has little distractions, maybe a library or a coffee shop, and plan. Think about what you want and how you’re going to get to it. Look at other people and what they have done to get where they are now. Use it to your advantage. This step alone will influence your outlook and will be a huge step between where you are now and what you want.

The next stumbling block? Actually doing it. Don’t just plan and hope, you really need to hit all the targets you have set and make sure you’ve done the best damn job you can for them. This can be especially tough if you’re working other jobs and have other commitments, but clearing your distractions and going to that efficient place will increase your productivity tenfold.

Once you have put in that work, you will see an impact on your own life as you will be positive you’re following something you really want. Once you have it your targets, what else do you want from your route? Plan again, this time with different goals, and put in just as much, if not, more work than you did last time.

There is no secret to it, it is purely just “hard work”. But “hard work” is just finding a direction and making the effort to move in that direction to get to the place you want to be.

I hope this helps some of you, just a thought I was telling myself whilst running the routine myself.