Getting knocked down in failure in any circumstance can be extremely disappointing and sometimes embarrassing, and is reason enough to quit and withdraw yourself from the world if you've never been taught how to deal with failure more proactively.
The good news is you can actually work with the crushing disappointment and sadness by using these powerful tactics and tools
1. Accept Negative Emotions
Negative situations happen and negative emotions come up. In cases of sadness such as breaking up with your partner or losing a loved one, you're going to feel sad - so feel sad.
Men specifically tend to think it's a sign of weakness to show emotion. We think we can 'turn off' our emotions, harden up and keep going. This is not a healthy way to be and will result in suppressed emotions bottling up which slowly wear you down.
A recent study published by greatergoodmagazine.com (of UC Berkley ) shows that suppressing emotions actually endangers your health and well-being, both physically and psychologically. Emotional suppression (having a stiff upper lip or “sucking it up”) might decrease outward expressions of emotion but not the inner emotional experience. In other words, suppression doesn’t make the emotion go away, it just stays inside you causing more pain.
Once you realise it's okay to feel negative and understand how damaging emotional suppression is you'll be healthier and ready recover more easily from failure.
2. Change Your Perspective
We all know the saying; every story has (at least) 2 sides. Most people probably can understand this too, but to actually use its' meaning in a practical sense is another story.
To fully understand the whole situation you need to see the situation from the other persons point of view and also, an outside perspective.
This gives you a full spectrum understanding of the situation and more clarity as to what you both want from the argument and often a solution will be easier to find.
This is easier said than done and can be specifically difficult to understand when you just want to win the argument.
Shifting your perspective to review a failure or past negative event is a powerful tool. If you get fired from your job or your partner breaks up with you, there are always more than one way to look at it.
Both scenarios can mean the start of a brand new adventure and new experiences. What we focus on is always our choice.
3. Develop a 'Learning' Mindset
Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation.
The learning mindset steps in and overpowers the negative self talk turning your situation into a learning experience.
Immediately after a failure or defeat ask yourself ...
"What did I learn here?" - "What did I learn about other people?" - "What did I learn about the world?" and "What will I do next time?"
This mind set intentionally steps away from the automatic response of negativity and self doubt. This approach sets you up to be forward thinking and even excited about the future or next time you face a similar challenge.
Next time you're faced with a similar problem you'll be cool ,calm, collected and you'll be ready because you took a few moments to analyse the whole issue, you recognised what went wrong, you took responsibility for anything you needed to and you figured out exactly what you need to do next time to turn the situation around.
Review
Allow yourself to feel whatever you're feeling. Change your perspective with the learning mindset to go to a whole new level with this simple mindset;
'Everyone is a teacher, everything is a lesson, I am the student.'
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