3 Ways to Get Past Any Failure

We can all learn the keys to staying positive.

Post published by Jason Powers M.D. on Feb 11, 2015 in Beyond Abstinence

 

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed." — Michael Jordan

Have you ever given such a bad performance (at anything) that no matter what you did afterward, you couldn’t escape the horror of the mental reruns plaguing your memory? You know the feeling: No matter how many times you did it right, all you can think about was how bad it felt doing it wrong.
Doubts begin to creep into your mind: Are you in a slump? Or worse yet, maybe you were never as good as you thought you were.
So, once incarcerated by this fear of failure (link is external), how do you escape the prison and move on?
I’m in the middle of a thousand things. At times, I feel as though I may have overcommitted myself. We’re all busy, of course, and maintaining balance in our lives is no one else’s responsibility. But when you take on too much, you can make mistakes.
And the other day, I did just that.
A Swing, and a Miss
Like a chef who decides to try a new recipe on the night of his big opening and fails to account for clashing food pairings, I made the last-minute decision to try a novel approach to a lecture at a conference on alcoholism at Texas Medical Center—and it bombed. I took a big swing...but I missed. I have a thousand excuses that could temper the pain and perhaps stop the voices of self-doubt and criticism in my head. But at the end of the day, Huey Lewis and The News were dead-on when they sang, “Sometimes, bad is bad.”
Sometimes, like Michael Jordan, we fail. But it is still hard to take. I’ve given lectures after which people lined up to shake my hand and tell me how moved they were. Other times, the response has been good, with at least a few audience members motivated to speak to me afterward. But on this day, neither the audience nor the speaker was really sure where the presentation was going, or even when it was finished.
The silence was deafening. In the parlance of standup comedy, I died up there.
I’m in the middle of a massive project (link is external). After my recent speaking debacle, the thought of tightening my shoelaces and pulling myself up by my bootstraps so I could finish curating new research, complete a PowerPoint, and fine-tune my presentation seemed an overwhelming prospect.
When we feel really bad, we aren’t especially motivated to do much of anything. On the other hand, following a big win, it’s quite easy to move on to the next big thing. For me, such a large fail once would have easily been followed by days, weeks, or months of sadness, anger, helplessness and copious amounts of cookie-dough ice cream. The last thing I wanted to do after my failed talk was to go to work on another set of presentations. I'd have preferred to skip town.
Harnessing the Power of Positive Psychology

Source: Florin Angelescu/Shutterstock

One reason I love positive psychology is because it studies people’s successes, discovers how to build on those “wins,” and applies that knowledge to empower them the next time the psychological wind is knocked out of them. Skills and strategies to keep going despite adversity can be taught. If I learned how to apply them, you can too—my last name may be Powers, but I have no superpowers. In fact, I used to live in the self-defeating realm of “You’re not good enough and you don’t belong.”
Instead of reaching for alcohol, excessive spending, or other high-calorie or mind-altering escapes, keep stretching yourself and being brave.
Here are some suggestions for building on failure (link is external):

• Adopt a Growth Mindset. When you do this, you can see that you are a work in progress. You’ll be more forgiving with yourself, more likely to take chances, and more apt to put what you learn into action. Mark Twain put it best: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Set challenging goals for yourself so that you are continuously growing. The harder the goal, the happier you’ll be trying to achieve it. Remember, achievement is the peace of mind that comes from knowing you gave your all. Sometimes your best, even when not good enough, ends up being your best teacher.
   
• Use Your Support System. Check your thinking for maladaptive thought patterns. Jordan missed plenty of shots, but his teammates kept feeding him the ball. In real life, other people can contribute greatly to your happiness and resilience, but if you aren’t nurturing relationships when things are going well, it’s less likely that friends will be there to support you when things go badly. Call three people in your support system today—don’t wait until you’re all alone with Ben & Jerry and your tears.
   
• Dispute Negative Beliefs. Lao Tzu once said, “Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream.” When we face failures, we can become helpless, Martin Seligman explains in Learned Optimism. Helplessness can quickly become hopelessness and escalate into full-blown depression when we explain our failures with permanent, pervasive and personal causes. If we use an optimistic explanatory style, we reduce the perceived severity of stressors. They may seem like they are not such a big deal, will be over quicker, are not our fault, and will not necessarily recur.

Source: Photo purchased from iStock, used with permission.

I’m not suggesting that all you have to do is pretend all is well and sing "Kumbaya." The key is to learn from your mistakes, take personal responsibility for your part in them, and nurture your strength of spirit so that in times of trouble, you’ll have the elasticity to bounce back.