Life is not all black and white!
There are no guarantees in life. When life throws a ball at you, do you duck down or take a jump and throw a six? We all have to deal with challenges and setbacks in life. Whatever the situation is, you cannot let it defeat you. Life is a rollercoaster, and the only way you can deal with it is by enjoying it.
Change? A good thing?
Do you ever wonder what is it about change that gives birth to emotions like joy, anger, uneasiness or excitement? Is it the uncertainty that accompanies change? Is it the inability to control the outcome? Or is the fact that change challenges our comfort zone?
The real challenge is learning to accept the negative outcomes of change and then move on with the learnings to the next step. People who go living life without embracing failure or having had the opportunity to fail are the ones who don’t know how to deal with it. When you throw ourselves into situations where you encounter challenges and fears, you get so used to them that the next time it happens, you just embrace it as another step to grow forward.
Alexander Pope once said: “To err is human…” Failure is an inherent part of the human experience. Failing at a task doesn’t make anyone a failure as a person. The common reasons for equating failing at tasks and being a failure are ‘All-Or-Nothing Thinking’ and ‘Shoulds And Musts’.
If I asked you to describe your life in one colour, what would it be? I would say life is grey. Maybe a tiny bit of black and white too. Noone is totally brilliant or totally stupid. Absolutes do not exist in this universe. It is unrealistic to look at life in terms of always, every and never. Life always exists in the grey areas. If you focus only on the negative aspect of a situation, you wear a pair of glasses with a special lens that filter out anything that is positive.
Start with the principle of the stock market. Do not look at the daily growth, instead, look at the trend, as a trend only materialises itself through a period of time. So next time you fail, start visualising your stock! The ups and downs may appear to be ruffled, but it is only once you zoom out that you see the whole actual broad picture concluding the trend it follows. Try to ask yourself this question, ‘Am I on the right trend?’ and probably the noise will just fade away. Rationalise your emotions, give them meaning, reasons and time through the stock market visualisation.
How to manage your failures?
Ask yourself these questions, Was it a small mistake or a huge blunder? Are you calling it a failure because you perceive it so? While dealing with failure, managing your emotions is crucial. This doesn’t mean that you have to put down your emotions. It is absolutely fine to feel sad, confused, scared or angry. You have to learn to give yourself some time to rein in your emotions. The trick is to make sure that emotions don’t limit you. Building self-awareness and self-regulation is crucial. If you feel sad, is it because of dissatisfaction or dejection? If you feel angry, is it irritation or are you furious? If you feel confused, is it just perplexion or are you bewildered? If you are experiencing fear, it is anxiety or are you terrified? It is necessary to label your emotions correctly. Try self-regulation through physical exercise, meditation, listening to music, talking to a good friend or separating yourself from that environment. Choose what works for you. Be kind to yourself. You deserve self-compassion. Just because you have failed at a task, doesn’t mean that you are a failure. Sometimes, we tend to criticize others for our failures. You have to take the ownership when you are at fault, even though it may feel justified to blame others, the situation or the context.
If you keep checking the failure checklist, you will learn to fail intelligently.
This doesn’t mean that you have to always fail in order to achieve success because if the mentioned was true, then everyone would be successful.
Meditate, reflect, do a lot of introspection and then finally come to an objective conclusion. The ‘Art of Reflection’ is what makes your failure worthwhile. Try to ponder upon these questions, that what is it that I did not know back then, that I know today. What is it that stopped me back then and have I fixed it now. And only when you go through this process of self-reflection that you land upon the progress and thus growth.
The black and white approach of applauding success and not considering failure as an option harms learning and growth. Think of failure as a step in the learning process that helps you increase the probability of future success. One way to normalize failures is by sharing our failures. Add this in your dictionary of thoughts. Everyone fails! History shows that people who have embraced failures are the ones who’ve eventually grown immensely and succeeded in life. If you have an optimistic mindset, you can see the silver lining in every situation.
Life is not all hunky-dory but cracking of the celebration of the failure resume. Wear your scars with pride as those will be reasons for your winning on the battlefield.
This article was inspired by a course I recently took and it changed my perspective and the way I look at things. Hope you had something to take away from this :)
