People often say that we should not take failures personally! We should not take it to heart!
How else are we supposed to take it?
I mean we were not able to accomplish something, a result which we desired, for all the hard work we put in, for all the time we spent, for the emotions that we had to go through and in the end it was all for nothing? I would certainly not be happy about that. I would certainly not be in a position to walk away from it saying that it doesn’t bother me. I mean no matter how many times I say that it doesn’t bother me, I honestly know that it is not true. It really does bother me, it makes me feel bad like it should.
What does this failure mean to you? :
However it might be interesting to see what a failure means to us. We have been operating under an assumption that every emotion is a call for action. Every emotion has something to tell us. So What is this failure trying to tell us? Is it trying to tell us that we are useless? Is it trying to tell us that we are incapable of something? Is it trying to tell us that we are unlucky? Or is it trying to tell us that we cannot do it at all? If the answer for any of these questions is a YES, then maybe I think we might want to talk to ourselves again but with a different set of questions.
What can it actually mean to you?
The new set of questions can be – What is the meaning of this? Where exactly did it go wrong? How can I make it better? Why am I feeling bad? How can I stop feeling bad about it? What should be the take away from it? How can I tackle this? See the difference between the two paragraphs? Every question here is leading you to an action whereas every question above is leading to a single unified answer and a solution which says “YOU ARE AN IDIOT” and you are not going to go very far with that answer!
And about taking it personally!
– Coming back to taking a failure personally, I am well aware that few people might not like the way I am portraying it right now. I understand that it might not be the best thing to tell someone, it is not even sympathetic. I really do understand how it feels to fail, to have your goals and morals questioned over and over again. It feels awful, it feels as though you have fallen below your standards. Now you can walk away from it, say that it is not your fault, call the grapes sour and say that it was your bad luck. No one is going to argue with you, not even me. I may in fact pretend to sympathize with you like a lot of other people will. But I can promise you that it is not going to help, it is not going to make a difference. You may feel that I am an ass when I say this, you may also feel that I am being unreasonable and insensitive as well. Maybe, but I am also being true.
We don’t want an escape vent, we want a solution!
I agree that it is a natural tendency to try and identify what went wrong and it is even more natural to try and identify people or situations to take the blame. I have done it so many times in the past and in the recent present too. And it is ok as long as you know where it stands. You cannot operate on a belief that someone or something else screwed it up for you. That way you will always find a recluse, a safe spot, an easy exit. I know it sucks to feel bad, it sucks further to be in it. But I am saying let us get over it, lets get past it, the entire thing is trying to send us a message and it is pretty plain and simple – take it personally, don’t try to mask your feelings, feel bad for a while, life is not all about smiles, it is about a few tears as well. But more importantly try and identify what you are going to make out of it? What you are going to let it mean to you? And how life is going to be different cos of this. Don’t try and avoid the failures or the disappointments, face them, win over them. Life is really a larger place and a bigger construct and you can make a hell lot of difference but only if you let yourself to :)
Related :
Why you have to fail to have a great career?
Why I badly needed a failure?
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Failure brings us closer to success. A great way to motivate yourself and get back on track after a setback is to remember all of the people who struggled through adversity and failures to eventually achieve their dream. So, never let failure upset you..
Nice Post with the paragraphs neatly framed.
Good Day Vinay
True Veena, it is indeed a great way to remember that everyone goes through a struggle and the ones who survive through it make it happen, make a difference and make us remember them at times of a challenge :).
Thank you Veena, all thanks to Alok and his suggestions, feels nice to be writing more and more..
Good day Veena :)
One has to be very strong to dont do this kind of thing. However, not all fall in strong category.
Agreed Grey, I think we are all strong enough and weak enough as well. It is just that sometimes we choose to be weak which makes life a little challenging for us. However we can always make a switch and get right back on. After all, it is our life and we gotta make it count :)
Hell yeah :)
:)
Life is really a larger place and a bigger construct and you can make a hell lot of difference but only if you let yourself to icon smile Should we take failures personally?
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This line says it all for me :)
:).. Thank you Seeta :)
Loved the idea of cartoons Vinay!!
Great post Vinay. I am seeing that you are changing your writing style day by day. Just wanted to tell you these posts are becoming great day by day. Just want to give a few suggestions if you can work on them, they might help you more, although you are already an established and well known blogger. Try to use sub-titles or different headings-sub-headings etc. in your post.
And second you can also break some of your paragraphs into 2-3 small-small paragraphs. Small sized paragraphs can actually make your posts as a more readable one.
As far as taking failures as personally is concerned, to be very frank, I too do this and I don’t think that it has any harm as well, but then people should understand how easily they can come out of this situation. After all you cannot enjoy any success of your life if you don’t have tested the taste of failures.
Thanks Alok, this really means a lot to me coming from an experienced writer like you :). This is certainly going to brighten my day.
Thanks so much for the suggestions, would love to work on them. Subtitles is a very good idea, it helps the readers segregate the thoughts. I tried doing it a little with cartoons, but that with the addition of subtitles can make a nice difference.
That’s a nice thought on the length of the paragraphs. Will start implementing the two right away. Thanks so much Alok, it is very rare to get some quality feedback, esp when it comes to writing. I am really glad you wrote this and I shall start implementing those keenly.
And for the failures, I guess we are ok the way we handle it, maybe we all need a bit of fine tuning once in a while, but that being said, whenever we are posed to subjectivities of life, I guess there are a lot of variations that can be fun :).. Rightly said Alok, there is no way to enjoy success in life unless one has tasted what failure feels like :)
You are most welcome buddy. You are actually an inspiration for me and today I really became glad to see that you used cartoons in it. It is an interesting way to increase the reader’s engagement.
To be very frank, I don’t like visitors who simply clicks on our links and even clicks on the close button faster than that. I would love the visitors, if he/she is coming and getting engaged with our posts content.
Normally what I do is I first go through the sub headings to decide whether a blog is worth reading or not, and to be very frank this is quite common as well. half of your blog can be understood through your sub-headings only. It will further initiate the desire of the readers to go through the words of the blog…
Thank you Alok, that’s really quite a compliment. I have always dreamed of inspiration and to hear that I am able to do it is a fantastic feeling :) ..
Glad to know that the cartoons are being received well, I also tried a couple of slide shows in a few of my earlier posts. Maybe going ahead will try integrating that into youtube in order to spread wings a little.
nothing
I understand the point, it is very annoying to have visitors who aren’t engaged by the topic. Though they increase the traffic rate, the bounce rate and the time on the site reduce and also not the kind of readers who we would be looking at. I think at the end of the day, our intention is to add value and make a difference in some small way and if that reaches to people and makes a difference, then nothing like that :).
I see the point with Subheadings, I will give it a shot. In fact, I will this article a bit with subheadings, its a great feeling to start on a feedback right away :)
Alok, made those changes a bit.. How does it look now? :)
Looks good Vinay :) Thanks for giving so much importance of my suggestions, I guess you missed my blog on this, check this post of mine: http://www.inewsindia.com/2014/04/30/how-to-make-your-blog-readable/
It might help you a bit more…
Thanks Alok. Happy to work on the suggestions, it certainly adds value to the readers and also enhances the sense of satisfaction as well :).
Cool, I shall check out the post :).. I guess I had missed it..