We all have gone through many motivational talks and articles which say, “Failure is not the opposite of success, but an important part of success.” Inspirational indeed it is, but it can hardly lift up your mood when you fail an important examination or your startup does not succeed even after working on it day and night.

Failure- the terror within us-

Though we hate Virus from “3 idiots” when he says, “Life is a race. Vago (run)”. In reality, we are all stuck in that rat race. Since our childhood, we were judged for our grades and were constantly compared with the famous “Sharmaji ka beta”. We are prepared to dream for that bright and glorious future ahead, not a gloomy or even an average one. Success is indeed not monochromatic, especially academic success is not always useful for professions like chef, players, actors and others. But India being under the British colony for nearly two centuries, bear their educational structure and environment to make us mere office workers.

Though we can go on discussing how we can define success and failure, most of us have faced failure once at least in our lives. It may not be anywhere important, or it just be that someone could not top an exam for a couple of marks, but a failure is always a failure.

And for people who are not accustomed to see themselves fail very often, the first failure is a real shock. Psychology says, we go through six different mental stages while going through failure which starts from disbelief and ends by acceptance.

How to deal with failure-

There are different ways you can try to handle failure.

1. There is a popular proverb in Bengali, “You become more intelligent after a thief escapes from your grasp (chor palale buddhi bare)”. Basically, whenever you fail, you try to rationalise what you could have done better to avoid the failure. Though you can no more apply that strategy for that particular event, you can always implement it in your future activities.

2. There is another proverb, “when one door is closed, another one opens up”. If life fails you at some point, your life or even your chances to succeed does not get over. You can try plenty of other activities at that time. While most of your friends may pursue their dream carreers, you can put your heart out in your passion, or even find out a new passion in your life.

If you think it clearly, the definition of success is changing day by day. Those who were obsessed with fashion, cosmetics and stuff, were considered to be hopeless a few years back. But now they can be popular fashion bloggers and YouTubers. The key is to never stop learning. We are in an era when you have the information of the whole universe in your hand. You can succeed in your life with just some strategy, passion and the electronic device that you are currently using to read this article.

3. If one match does not make you a player, one article does not make you a writer, how can one fail make you a failure?

J.K. Rowling was rejected by no less than 12 publishers before Bloomsbury chose to publish “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. After her first rejection, she hung that rejection letter in her kitchen to remind her that she had something very common with most of the popular authors, her first rejection. Not to forget Amitabh Bacchhan had got rejected for his baritone voice, Lata Mangeshkar for her childish tone, scientist Satyendranath Bose for his works on Boson particles. Merlin Monroe, Mr. Bean and others are no different either.

4. Make a proper plan for your next target, be more focused this time. Analyse the cause of your failure, judge your capacity accordingly and set realistic goals for yourself. You can pen down your plans and divide it into small sections. Reward yourself for your small achievements, this will keep you motivated.

5. You can also try out different approaches. Focus your growth more than your goal. Invest in yourself. Learn a new skill, read a lot about your domain and find inspiration. When feeling down, always remember why you started.

6. Do not bother what other people will say. This affects us more and destroys our self-esteem. One failure will change your world-view a lot. You will find your trusted friends drifting away from you. People will bad mouth you, you will come to know about some really innovative rumours about you that you would have never thought could be there. You will also encounter so many people to advice you. In India, when you are in distress, you will rarely get any help from anyone for free, except advice. Of course, some genuine people will show up, you will come to know who your real friends, but rely on your own self more from now.

7. Accept it, you have failed. Stop dwelling in your past. Make fun of your failure. And if it is too hard for you to handle, vent it out. Write down in a paper and burn it at least, if you do not have anyone to share it with, but be beware of online strangers who can use you in your time of distress.

8. Do not start smoking or get into any type of bad habits. Even binge watching any series and binge eating are also prohibited. Bad time will pass, but it is troublesome to get rid of bad habits.

9. Lastly, spend time with your family. They are the only true well wisher of yours. Like the quote of the popular web series “Kota Factory”, “the decisions our parents make can be wrong, but their intentions are never incorrect”. Convince them what you want to achieve, if they are not with you at first. Spend some family time with them. They will be the one waiting for your victory even more than you.

Disclaimer: The facts & opinions of this post are written by the author in his personal capacity. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of Edukeeda and Edukeeda does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.