Prepare for failures, Success is a bonus!

We sometimes fail despite having put our best efforts. But, no one likes to fail as failure comes with pain, social stigma, misery and sorrow. It shatters our self-confidence, sometimes wreaks us financially and demotivates us from trying again. Hence, we need to prepare ourselves to deal with failures. But how?

To understand it we have to evaluate and analyse the factors that drive our craving for success. Success enables individual name, fame and financial acclaim. It inflates our ego and makes us feel happy. It is highly addictive, as the more we get the more we want. However, it is unsustainable - being driven by external factors, over which we have little control. In nutshell, failure is frequent than success - how much hard we work or manipulate. 

Hence, to deal with the consequences of failures we need to practice a lifestyle that we can easily afford even under stretched conditions. We need to control consumption to manageable levels to sustain unforeseen financial losses. This mitigates pain on account of depleting cash flows - empowering us to take more risk - thereby increasing our chances of success. Flamboyant lifestyle fuels insecurity (of impending losses) - increasing mental agony and decreasing our ability to take more risks.

Managing our ego is very critical as "ego" is the biggest enemy. It disproportionately increases the magnitude of pain due to failure. It corrupts our vision and decision-making capabilities and decreases the chances of success. The best way to manage ego is by being grateful for the opportunities, as our contributions (about which we are so proud of) are riding on these opportunities. These are mostly circumstantial, driven by birth, society and sometimes even by chance, for which we cannot take any credit. Hence, we need to consider ourselves as a humble contributor to the outcome than solely responsible for it.

Working towards enhancing our skills is an important factor which can potentially decrease the agony due to failures, as the "fear of failure" is also due to loss of opportunities due to obsolescence of our skill sets. Constant upgradations of our skills can open new opportunities - increasing confidence levels - mitigating the "fear of failure".

To conclude, "success' should be measured by our "magnitude of contribution" towards a larger cause, than by the gains that we realise individually. Collective goals are easier to achieve than individual goals - mitigating pain on account of failures. Preparation for failures is nothing but focusing on these principles, which has the power of making us more fulfilled, satisfied and happy. Our "individual success" should be seen as a bonus while contributing towards a much larger objective.