Failing does not make you a failure

Failing is one of the things that people fear the most. Some people go to the extent of not trying at all just because they are afraid of failing.

Many people think failing is a disgrace, a stain on their glorious lives. But in the long run, failing is an essential part of being a better person.

But here's what I learned after repeatedly failing in my life: failing does not make you a failure.

Why do you fear failure?

To understand why people fear failure, we will start by understanding fear itself. Fear can be categorised into two types: primal and intellectual. The difference? The former is physical, while the latter is all in your head.

Primal fear

Primal fear occurs when you are standing face-to-face against a tiger, for example. It's a fight-or-flight situation because your life is on the line.

If you think about it, there's a very slim chance for most of us who live in a civilised area to experience primal fear. That is why the fear of failure belongs to the other type of fear:

Intellectual fear

Intellectual fear, on the other hand, is just something your mind made up. For example, being scolded by your boss might scare the shit out of you, but it's not going to kill you.

Most of our problems trigger our brains to create intellectual fear—the fear of being fired, rejected or broken. Intellectual fear comes when our minds are uncomfortable with a situation.

So why do we fear failure? We overthink the possibility of failure and create a bunch of scenarios in which we fail.

We overthink the possibility of failure and create a bunch of scenarios in which we fail.

Failing is a Good Experience

As an adult, it seems like failure is not an option. Other people are always judging us, and sometimes, we care too much about what they think about us. We stop doing things that might embarrass us in public. Some people even stopped trying at all.

But do you remember the first time you tried to ride a bicycle? Or when you first learned to tie your shoes? As kids, failures helped us understand. Making mistakes was the only way for us to know how things worked.

It was common for us to fail as a kid, so why is it not normal for adults to fail? What makes you think that adults should have it all figured out? And why should adults be right all the time?

You've failed a lot when you were a kid, and you turned out all right.

You should at least try

Trying brings you two steps forward. However, while failing will take you back one step, it won't drag you back to the starting point. Why? Because you have learned something — you know how to do it the wrong way.

Acknowledge Your Failures

When people fail, some of the most common reactions are to deny, regret, or cover it up. However, the first thing you need to do is to accept that you have failed.

You are not good enough for now, or maybe you did something wrong, and that's okay. There is only one way to go from here: to learn from this failure.

Failure is a part of the process, and it will only help you progress further. When you see failure as a learning process, it would be easier to accept it when you fail.

Take some time to process your thoughts and feelings—don't rush it. Then, move on with your life.

People fail all the time. They make mistakes and learn from them. That's how we grow as human beings. Without failures, we'll stay in our comfort zone and live in our bubble. If that's what you want in life, that's okay. But it may not get you to where you want in life.

Not failing is a failure in itself. Make mistakes, try a lot of things, be a kid, and acknowledge and learn from your failures.

I hope you find this insightful. Remember:

It's not going to be easy,
But it's not impossible.

Your friend,
Brian.