Why we fail & tools to deal with failure

This will be a two part blogpost the first one on failure and the next one in two weeks on Keys to Success

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work" -Thomas Alva Edison

I have always been intrigued by failure! I sometimes wonder nervously if we are even trained effectively to deal with failure? A passing glance at life teaches us that the special skill of dealing with failure has always been developed through trial and error in the school of hard knocks. One wonders if this is the most efficient way to learn? The answer obviously is no. Sadly, there is no road map to success we can print off the web, can we?



Then how do we deal with failures ranging from failed business ventures to bad grades in school to failed relationships and everything in between? What do we do when we feel we are in a totally helpless situation? In most cases, failure is accompanied by negative emotional expressions like despondency, depression, limiting self beliefs, and in some, even suicidal tendencies.

Last week on a flight to Boston, I met an extremely smart girl, a dentist, who shared her medical school experience on failure. Due to a small physical disability, she failed in one of her lab classes. She was not allowed to go to the second year because of an F grade. Here was a straight A student who has never gotten an ‘F’ in her life. The bitterness of failure was new to her, yes, she rebelled and how? She went on a drinking binge to sink her sorrows but to no avail. She realized in hindsight that she was lacking tools to deal with failure at that time. Too many of us do not know how to react when failure accosts us. We start doubting ourselves and give up the struggle!

Shakespeare once said “Our doubts are traitors, which often makes us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt”




Why fail?

We fail because we make mistakes, but we fail to understand the universe is set up that way.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.” So, in order not to fail, we must not do anything! We must accept the inevitability of failure in our lives at some point or the other and not take it so seriously.

There can be several other reasons like inexperience, lack of judgment, luck, not wanting it bad enough, factors beyond our control, etc. but at its core, fear of failure is one of the chief causes of failure. Why “ fear”? Fear gives rise to negative thoughts, our thoughts are magnets which attract to us the very thing we constantly think about. ( Have you watched the secret?)



Fear paralyzes the mind into a state of shock and prevents us from using discriminative intelligence.
How many times has it happened to you the very thing you seek to avoid is what you always attract?




If you watch your thoughts during a down period, you do not FEEL good. In short, it is just a feeling, a feeling is nothing but a sustained emotion. It does not reflect the situation (situations are always neutral), it just reflects how we perceive the situation. Since it is just our perception, a feeling, it can be changed instantly.

The mind has a tendency to stay in a rut and will replay the situation over and over again. The goal is to get objective very quickly which depends on the emotional mental state you are in. Once you switch your emotional state, clarity sets in. Clarity is the precursor to success.

Key Tools for Immediate Relief:


Pose the million dollar question: Say to yourself “SO WHAT”?

Michael Jordan said “ There was never any fear for me, no fear of failure, if I miss a shot so what?” Is it possible this mindset made him the greatest basketball star??

Have a workout schedule/Sweat it out: Yes, it is psycho-physical, emotional discomfort can be healed by working the body. Vigorous exercise like running, swimming, yoga will release enough endorphins (“happy chemicals”) in the blood that can change your emotional outlook in a matter of hours. I have derived enormous benefit by working out when things were not going my way.

Know your purpose in life: When was the last time you asked yourself what is important to you? You might find that the thing you are striving to succeed in may not even be that important to your ultimate purpose in life. As Dalai Lama says “Sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck”

Introspect and Learn: Dalai Lama said, “When you lose do not lose the lesson.” Introspection is the first step towards recovering from failure. It is the ability to look at the incident sans emotion. Talk to people whom you admire and run the situation by them, their years of experience in wisdom can save you several years. Anthony Robbins suggests associating pain with the incident as one of the ways not to repeat a mistake.

Action Plan: When in doubt? Do!!! It is all about action. Peter Drucker in his essay on leadership suggests asking yourself “What should be done now? And follow it with an action plan. Action plan brings the focus to the solution.


It seems like failure is a necessary step to success, every person we think a success has had to deal with enormous amount of failure. Failure and success are different sides of the same coin, if you have one you inevitably must experience the other. Failure is a loyal friend who is not afraid to show us the mirror, whether we are in the dumps of life or floating high in the sky. Great ones have learned to welcome failure as openly, if not more, as success.

We will explore success in the next blogpost...