What To Do When You Don’t Succeed: 7 Helpful Tips

We hear about success and how to make it and what not to do. We rarely get to learn what to do when we don’t succeed. How are you supposed to feel? What are you supposed to do? Do you try again or should you give up? There are 7 things that can help and we need to know them not only to get a good grip on our feelings but also so we can get up the next day and live. These 7 things are:

1.???Sit with your feelings: Our feelings are original to us; you could even say they are our authentic responses to life’s various stimuli. Whether you are sad, angry, or any of the many feelings that are in between these two such as disappointed, wary, listless, infuriated, despondent, lost, aggrieved, whatever you feel at the moment you learn that you have not succeeded, feel it. Don’t jump to action. Sit with it. Allow the emotions to become fully present until you can accurately say what it is you feel. Don’t try to block the feelings or paralyse them by eating, drinking, or some aimless activity that lures you into forgetting. Feel it until you can name it- it can take a few seconds, minutes, an hour. The intensity should pass before you can gain perspective for a clear decision on what to do. This is important if you are to make a critical valued judgement on what to do without making a bad situation worse.

2.???Go on doing what you would normally do: No matter what happens in the world, the sun still shines, a new day dawns. Bear this rhythm in mind not only at good times but in bad times. Go about life as normally as you can even though you have not succeeded. If you lost a promotion but you still have a job, show up. If you failed the test but you still have classes, go for them. Someone died but the children need feeding, feed them. You lost that contract but you have another meeting, turn up. Why, you may ask? Because although you don’t realise it, it is not the end of your world and this is the saving fact. Look around and you will see that the world has not stopped. As long as you are alive, your life and its endless possibilities have not stopped. You must remember that.

3.???Talk/Write/Cry about your pain/loss: If feelings are real, this must mean that somehow or the other they are manifested. Indeed, they are, consciously or unconsciously whether in bodily, mental or emotional (mal)functions. It is essential to our wellbeing that we express our feelings about not achieving our goal in a healthy, objective way. Talk to someone who cares enough to listen, someone wise and kind. Write down your feelings – journaling is making a fresh comeback not just in psychotherapy but also in contemporary wellbeing circles. Writing is engaging your head with your heart. It is a private therapeutic exercise without judgement and without anyone to impress. Cry if you want to. Tears are natural and despite the rhetoric from the chin-up brigade about putting on a good face when bad things happen to you, what you need to do at this time is let out the pain. Finding a quiet space where you can cry or even talk out loud also helps (even with its risk of having anyone hearing you wonder if all is well). Expressing yourself in a safe manner is vital if you are to relieve the tension and stress you feel. Try it.

4.???Seek comfort in people not in social media: Today, social media is amplifying what native media (I’m referring to local gossip, face to face gist) has been doing that is, retell of other people’s wonderful lives while we contend with our own misery. Sadly, instead of finding people, we get on social media in search of empathy or even sympathy. I think people- real, living, breathing people are a better alternative for us social creatures in both good and bad times. You don’t need a ton of friends to get through hard times, you just need a few real people beside you or at the other end of a phone or letter, who make you realise that there is some good in life and that you can get over the present pain. Call someone, go for a walk with a mate, allow someone who can to comfort you. You need it.

5.???See the bigger picture: Each of us is only a small part of this big wide world. A really wee bit of it. ?As you live in your world surrounded by all you know, you may move in the illusion that what you can see and what you know is all there is. Until reality bites. Not getting what you worked for can be a powerful lesson in seeing that you are not more important or more special, all the time. When another person gets what you have longed for, it is a gentle reminder that there are others who not only want the same thing but who are better placed than you are, to have it.?And that is not a bad thing. We need periodic reminders that the world is much bigger than our dreams and that other people can win too. It can be a lesson about not placing all your hope and dreams in others or a lesson about yourself - that you are not ready for that success yet. It can be a lesson about letting go and knowing what not to let go of. Seeing the bigger picture is also a lesson about presumption that is, that you learn not to presume your success. See the bigger picture.

6.???Set aside time for self-reflection: Self-reflection is one of the most powerful tools for personal growth and success. Rather than worry about what has been lost, consider what has actually happened. What did you do towards achieving that goal? What do you think you could have done better? Now this is where it gets interesting because it is quite possible that there was nothing you could have done better! Take a job application for instance. If there was unbeknownst to you, a preferred candidate for the position, you could turn up in your best suit and put in an outstanding performance, and still not get it! Self-reflection is learning time. It is also eye-opener time – was that thing you wanted really good for you, for your family, relationships, personal wellbeing? What have you learnt about yourself from what has happened? ?Most importantly, self-reflection is essential for change. Reflect on what has happened so that the experience of not succeeding becomes in itself a lesson for change, for success in the future. You can start afresh, try again, or if you never got the chance to try before, just do it. You're alive, that's the main thing.

7.???Look out for the opportunities ahead: Call me an eternal optimist. Time may not wipe out the memory of not succeeding but I am convinced that not only does it heal but it also offers us vast possibilities. If we learn the lessons of self-reflection, we may discover our capacity and abilities for even better things, yes, different things but things that we will succeed at if we tried. It is even possible that we will get what we want (or that we will attain the satisfaction we were really seeking as we pursued a particular goal) in a different way, by different means, at a different time or in a different place. Do not give up your hope in finding the satisfaction you are really aiming for - it might just come another way. Armed with the lessons you learnt and the growth you achieved when at first you didn’t succeed, the road ahead becomes less challenging, less scary, less daunting and if you look, with more opportunities - take them.

I hope your tomorrow is even better than your yesterday and that if you have not succeeded, that you do not stop. Tomorrow is another day. Keep going…one foot in front of the other…

With best wishes,

Elimma