Failures are a normal event in most people’s lives, however
there are some who seem to get more than their fair share. Each time they ask
themselves “why me”? Each time their self confidence takes a battering. Each
time the sense of helplessness becomes stronger, and each time it becomes more
and more difficult to bounce back. But there are ways to recover even if you
have had a series of failures and think you have no energy left to fight back.
Step 1 - Get it out of your
system
Keeping it bottled up inside does not help. You end up feeling
miserable and making everyone around you miserable as well. Many people
especially men are conditioned to maintain a ‘stiff upper lip’ no matter what,
but not only does it affect your emotional state your health also takes a big
hit. You are of no use to anyone including yourself if your are sick or worse –
dead! Do whatever you have to in order to get it out of your system. If you
want to cry - do it, if you want to scream – then scream, if you want to put
your feelings down on paper – then start writing. Most people secretly blame
others for their failures, their friends or family, their colleagues, their
stock broker etc. Blame everyone you think is even remotely associated with your
failure. But this should be a completely private exercise, it does not mean
that you actually seek out everyone and tell them how you think they have
contributed to your misery. This may seem a very negative thing to do but
believe me it works as it helps you to bring to surface any residual
resentment, so that nothing is left festering inside you anymore. One may say
that this exercise will make them feel worse, yes it will but you have to hit
rock bottom before you can bounce back.
Step 2 – Acceptance
Once you have everything out of your system, then you can take
the next step. Realize that you are powerless to travel back in time and change
your life. What has happened is in the past, dwelling on it will not change the
present outcome. Whoever or whatever was responsible cannot change your
present. Your “what if” thinking is not going to have any bearing on a past
event – What if you had not listened to x,y,z and invested your money? What if
you had taken the other job offer? What if … what if…. Pointless and a total
waste of time, you past is permanently part of your history. But your future
starts in this moment right now. The choice is yours whether you want to keep
thinking of all that happened and ensure that it happens in your future as well
or do you say ‘enough’ and put it behind you once and for all.
Step 3 – Get over it
There are millions who are in the same situation as you and
there are several millions in worse situations. Big deal! Nobody can make the right
choice each time. Everyone ends up at the wrong time at the wrong place at some
point in their lives, success depends upon what you do after a choice that
didn’t go according to plan. The world is not conspiring against you. None of
us is that important! Be thankful that you survived a really bad patch in your
life. The act of being thankful is important and extremely powerful. We have
grown up hearing that ‘Allah always knows what is best for us’. In fact many
religions subscribe to this theory, and when a statement is echoed over
millennia by completely opposing religions, then it can be considered as a
“universal truth’. So understand the wisdom of this truth and internalize it.
Our problem seems to be that we become fanatical about the rituals of the
religions we follow and use its wisdom only as quotations which we spout in
public. If God does know what’s best for us then He must have purposely put us
through this situation to teach us something. What were your most important
take-aways from this period of your life.? Did you find out who your true
friends were and who were not?
Step 4 – Take responsibility
If you have realized that this failure was no more than a life
lesson, then its time to understand what it was trying to teach you. You put
the blame on everyone else but what about yourself? What did you do to attract
this situation? This is not about beating yourself up and telling yourself that
you are a loser. This is about taking stock of your own areas of improvement.
Are there any attitudes or beliefs you are holding on to which seem to be at
play here e.g. a refusal means that they don’t like you? Do you feel that you
were lacking in some key skills which led to this failure e.g planning,
budgeting or getting work done from people? Are there certain habits which
contributed to this problem e.g. procrastination? By doing this you will be
taking a positive step for your future as well as realize that putting the
blame on others was somewhat unfair.
Step 5 – Take action
Make a list of lessons learnt and identify what you need to do
differently next time. By taking action in the present you change your future.
Start working on your areas of improvement. Get ready for the next opportunity
and have belief that it will come. The outcome of your future opportunity will
change because you yourself have changed, if not history will keep repeating
itself.
