Have you ever felt the sting, the unyielding grip of impending despair? The feeling that no matter how hard you try it seems without avail. The feeling that you just want to give up. Perhaps you have worked very hard for a long time for something and when it is almost within grasp it disappears. How can you pick yourself up and keep going? Perhaps the loss or failure of a loved one. Perhaps, a downturn in the economy has left your hard worked for nest egg a small fraction of its previous self. How we deal with these situations is the fundamental human challenge.
Failure and loss happens to everyone
Failure and loss inevitably happen to everyone at points in their lives. I am quite sure that I can say, like you, there have been times in my life when I have had to struggle, when I felt like giving up. The loss of material wealth or the interminable postponement of a dream. Perhaps a fear that comes from a lack of confidence or belief in my capabilities. That the mistakes I have made, or the obstacles in front may be insurmountable. It is when things seem bleakest and success seems most unlikely that I have felt I am truly tested as a human being? It is during those times that we are presented the seeds of great achievement. To summon the courage to face our biggest fears is to open ourselves to the opportunity to reap our most important rewards.
Failure is always a possibility, but it is our fear of failure, our despair that we must confront if we are ever to succeed or even know the satisfaction of the effort. A failed investment, an embarrassing public address before a room full of peers, a business venture that did not turn a profit, a marital relationship that ends in separation, a child that goes astray, what are we to do when we confront these situations? How are we to continue in the face of failure, embarrassment, loss and grief? How are we to deal with the fear and concern for our future, the possible erosion of our confidence in our abilities, the anxiety of our efforts gone sour? It is questions like these that everyone must answer at times.
What to do
Sometimes, despite our best efforts we do not succeed as we wish, or success escapes us. I am a casualty of the recent downturn in the housing market. Now I am not alone in this but the effects on me are felt personally. I invested at the peak and now must suffer the consequences of my decision. My timing was wrong.
When in the throes of a “failure” it may seem impossible at times to go on and the desire to give up makes itself known. Or perhaps the pain of the loss or failure seems too much to bear. Sleep and appetite may suffer, focus and concentration may become casualties. The question I have for myself now is how do I deal with this situation?
Here are some of the options that I have.
Pretend it did not happen
This may be possible for some, but I just do not see it as an option.
Escape
I can watch TV, drink, shop, party, or almost any other activity that draws the mind away from the situation but does not directly assist in learning from the failure or regret. These behaviours are all about dulling the pain. The irony is that these things will often dull the pain but if I persist I may fall into an habitual pattern of behaviour and sow the seeds of even greater failure and even greater pain.
The alcoholic did not end up that way with one drink, he or she continued to use alcohol as the primary manner of not facing the situation. What will one drink hurt, after all I deserve some pleasure in my life? Well I have decided that one drink if followed by another will hurt, big time. We have all seen people who have selected this way in an attempt to deal with their pain and “live a little”. Addiction is often the result of trying to escape the pain and hurt of failure. No one wants to end up with an addiction. No one plans it that way.
Even if addiction isn’t the result, the continued use of escape takes us off the playing field and puts us on the sideline to watch others play the game. Occasional escape is fine and quite enjoyable if they do not become the primary way I deal with difficult times.
Blame
It is always a good thing to try to find out the reason for something happening. If it is a success that I have then understanding the reason for why it occurred will help me to replicate it in future. In the case of failure it will help me to ensure it does not happen again in the future. The key is to find the reason or reasons and own my part of it.
If I experience a failure and blame it on someone or something else then I will cheat myself of the opportunity to learn and change what I can. Sure there can be other people involved who share in the failure, but what part of it do I own and what can I change about myself.
It is a cardinal rule that only through a change in myself, my thinking and behaviour, can I positively impact the world I live in. By blaming others I again remain on the sidelines while others join in and experience the joy of playing the game.
Change expectations
Another way of dealing with failure, loss and regret is to change my view of myself and my expectations. Many people will downgrade their expectations or goals in the face of failure or defeat. Although it is possible that I may have overshot or overestimated my ability to achieve a certain goal, it may be more likely that I have succumbed to despair and am settling for less. If I were able to conceive and believe that I could accomplish a goal in the first place then it is likely that I can achieve it
The failures, obstacles and changing circumstances may only be an indication of the importance of an objective. Can you imagine if Alexander Flemming decided that the search for penicillin was not achievable, or Jonas Salk succumbed to despair in his search for a cure for polio. These goals were of tremendous importance to humankind. To downgrade them would have been a tragedy for the entire human race.
To me changing my expectations or goals is an unsatisfying option. I would really have to assess if I did not have the ability or capacity to achieve my goal. Perhaps my goal may change shape or the horizon upon which achievement rests can be extended, but if I really believe I can eventually achieve my goal then it will likely be most satisfying to persist.
I recently saw an interview with Bill Gates, widely considered to be the most financially wealthy man in the world. What struck me most about the interview in which Bill Gates spoke of eliminating many world diseases in his lifetime and seeing additional technological innovations come to fruition, was the absolute assurance that they would happen. He said on several occasions that he “would be very surprised if they did not occur”. This is from a man with an immense sense of self-efficacy. There was no way he was standing down from the goals he had set because they were difficult or that many obstacles and failures would stand in the way.
Punctuate differently
I have found that my life represents a string of successes and failures and that what seems to matter most is when I punctuate that success or failure. I can never know what tomorrow will bring with any more certainty than I can predict the weather. I can, however, have the ongoing and interminable faith of the farmer who sows his seeds in anticipation of a bumper crop.
When I was a child I can remember my uncle who had a grain farm watch the thermometer, getting up every few minutes to look in fear of an impending frost. It was a cold summer and he lost much of his crop that year. I also remember the incredible smile of reward and accomplishment as he ran his fingers through the countless seeds of a successful crop in another year. For my uncle, feelings of despair and joy were a possibility each and every year. Despite feeling failure and loss in some years my uncle persisted and greeted each spring with new found vigor, planting fresh seed for the new year. We can do no less. I find my uncle an inspiration to propel me to greater effort, despite the possibility that failure may visit my door.
Overall, my uncle had more good years than bad. If he had given up after one bad year all the good ones would not have come into existence.
Allow the feelings but take action
No matter how we feel we can always act in accordance with sound principles of achievement. We can live courageously and push forward with anticipation of better times just like the farmer who plants his crop anew each spring in anticipation of growth and renewal.
Marshall Foch, a general during the first world war said he had but one virtue “never despairing”. I believe he meant that despite having feelings of fear we must always to move forward and act in anticipation of success, despite the feelings we have in the face of the failure or defeat of the moment. Forging ahead despite the obstacles in front or the failure behind is the sign of the truly successful for even they have from time to time felt the sting of failure, the agony of defeat, the regret of a decision. They did not let them stop them, instead they moved on, often equipped with the knowledge and insight that failure or defeat or decision engendered.
I find when I am confronted with feelings akin to regret or despair that one of the most important thing I can do is to allow myself to feel but then to act, redoubling my efforts. The fear of failure and the pain of worry are but catalysts to action. Live courageously.
Persistence
An important aspect of obstacles and failure is that they represent an opportunity to really grow and develop. How is this so? When you really have to work for your success you reap the rewards of belief in yourself. The more you persist through seeming failure to achieve a success the greater your confidence in your ability to accomplish what you set out becomes.
When I began building this website I had no knowledge of what was involved in actually putting a website online. I had some computer experience but was really starting from scratch when I set out. As I worked to put together this site I experienced many times that could have been punctuated as failures. I signed on with a web hosting company that did not provide any service or support and spent a month trying to obtain my domain name back. Then I used a software program and wrote some articles and found that the site was not going to work due to a lack of capacity for customization. I then changed to a better program and found I needed to develop programming skills such as html, css and php to make it work. As I studied and attempted to use these new skills I made many mistakes and faced many failures, but they were all temporary and really turned into signposts on my way to success.
I am now very proud of what I have been able to accomplish with the site and have a growing confidence and belief in myself to improve the website over time. This confidence and belief in myself is know in psychology as self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is perhaps one of the most important traits one can develop to achieve success in life. Those individuals with the greatest sense of self efficacy are those who have overcome the greatest obstacles and persisted toward their goals through all manner of failure.
Failure causes anxiety and fear while success causes joy and happiness. Both propel us to be the best that we can be. Feelings of sadness or despair is a real possibility for all of us, succumbing to despair however, is not an option. Instead we must use it to propel us to greater effort, for when we do succeed as we inevitably will, our joy will be even greater.
We have no way of knowing if or when failure may appear, but we must steel ourselves and be ready should it make an entrance into our lives. It perhaps more than any other occurrence can change our lives for the worst or for the better. Know this, failure is temporary and contains the seed of all success. We learn what we must do to be successful when we fail, we learn to persist and keep up our faith in ourselves when we fail and then go on, we learn just how wonderfully resilient we can be, success born of failure produces confidence in ourselves that cannot be shaken.
I have decided that for me persistent effort toward my goals in the face of obstacles is the most important thing I can do. Failure is only one of those obstacles on the way to success. To think any other way is to succumb to escape and blaming, both of which take me off the wonderful playing field of life.