Guest Post

We are often told that we should avoid failure at all costs. Of course, failing at something can be a very depressing experience. When you attempt an action and it doesn’t turn out how you wanted it to, it can cause a huge drop in your self-esteem.

You may think that you are not good at anything, that you should never try again, that life has only in store for you a tangled web of further failings.

Of course, it’s completely normal to think of failure in such terms, but without failure, we wouldn’t know what it takes to succeed.

Here are a few tips for turning failure into a positive experience that will pave the way to future successes.

1. Think about how and why you failed.

The depression that often manifests itself after failing at something – whether it’s a relationship, goal at work, or personal plan – can actually work in your favor.

A new research in depression has shown that the slowing down and the isolation that’s part and parcel of depression is an evolutionary adaptation that enables us to focus on our problems.

2. Understand that you can’t appreciate success until you’ve hit rock bottom.

Almost everything in life is relative. If we never failed at anything, then success would not taste as sweet.

You can’t appreciate the good things in life until you’ve really experienced the bad.

3. Failure can give you the inspiration you need to make big changes in your life.

 Janis Joplin once said in her song “Me and Bobby McGee”, Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

When we have lost something as a result of personal failure, we declutter our minds such that we begin to understand what it is that we want from life.

4. Fear of failure makes us less likely to take risks. Risk is often the only path to success.

In an inspiring TED talk given by the human resources expert Ken Robinson, who often writes about education and the arts, Robinson discusses how our educational system has trained us to be afraid of making mistakes.

The reason that young children are so creative is because they have not yet acquired this fear of what others will think if they fail. Those who are successful later in life are those who aren’t afraid to mistakes.

So the more you fail, the more you realize that there is nothing to fear, only experience to be gained. When we acquire a taste for failure, we are much more willing to take risks that will get us to where we want to be.

One of the most inspirational quotes I’ve ever read was one by Theodore Roosevelt, who said, “Far better it is to dare might things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits, who neither enjoy much nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

In a nutshell, Roosevelt points out how failure and suffering can change our lives for the better. If you’ve failed, don’t beat yourself up about it. Know that in the end, it will make you a better person.

Mariana Ashley is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about online colleges. She loves receiving reader feedback, which can be directed to mariana.ashley031 @gmail.com.