FAILURES. We all are experiencing failures and defeats. They are intrinsic parts of our life. Though, it’s tough to get used it. I’m still struggling. I failed yesterday twice, at least. Nothing awful, but it was painful… I was meditating today morning with one of the guided apps, where a women was saying that it’s difficult to separate failure from who we are:
‘We allow our failures to define us. It’s no longer that we simply have a failure, we make it mean we are a failure’ (Tamara Levitt).
What I like in her message is to even perceive failure as a victory, because we courageously tried and took the risk of learning a new thing. We should honour our effort and be proud of ourselves regardless of the outcome.
For me failure can be also a rejection. I think the difference between them is that rejection happens in the contact with other people, where failure is not achieving an expected result in a relationship with ourselves. Rejection from getting the job we wanted, refused to go for a second date with the person we liked or not meeting the requirements for the course we’ve applied for. It hurts to hear ‘NO’, we feel inadequate, not good enough, ashamed, we lose our self-trust and confidence. It takes time to rationalise and understand that it wasn’t about rejecting US, rather it was about THEM and their needs.
It takes courage to be rejected many times and not giving up on trying over and over again. With the self-belief that we will eventually find what is right for us. It takes guts to regularly fail on doing something well, like learning to dance for the first time or asserting new boundaries in a contact with others. Having million thoughts of how crap we are and wanting to quit, as it’s the easiest thing to do, but keep trying as making mistakes is the only way to learn.
At the same time remembering to not dismiss our disappointment, sadness or anger when we fail or get rejected. To feel those feelings by being compassionate and gentle with ourselves. Becoming vulnerable enough to open up to a good friend or therapist we trust and process what happened in a non-judgemental space.
What can be beneficial about failures and rejections is that they often forces us to realise things about ourselves that weren’t aware before. They push us to improve, motivate us to become better.
In hindsight, I’m grateful to many rejections and failures in my life, as it opened up other opportunities that worked for me better than I could even imagine.
Having said all these, failures and rejections hurt. And it’s OK, because we are only humans. And we have to fail in order to success.
