The Reality About Failing

The reality about failing is that it's usually the start of whatever you were meant to learn next, and almost everyone you admire has failed more often than they'd ever tell you.

This one is dedicated to all the brave souls who have failed in life. And dared to get back up again.

We have so many hang-ups around the word "fail". Even a red letter F, circled at the top of a page, can make our stomachs drop years after we last sat an exam. Over time we've learned to treat failing as something terrible. Something to avoid at all costs. And if it can't be avoided, then we avoid talking about it, or even thinking about it. We sweep it all under a rug where we don't have to see it or feel it.

So if you're carrying a failure around right now, on your own, we see you. You're in very good company. Let's take a look at what's really going on, and what you can do with it.

Why Does Failing Scare Us So Much?

Our conditioning against failure started when we were very young. When we failed at school, our parents were called in. And if they weren't, we did everything we could to make sure they never saw the report card.

That lesson followed us through college and into adult life. As we grew older, the stakes got higher and the risks felt bigger, so the fear simply grew up with us. Somewhere along the way, "I failed at something" slowly turned into "I am a failure". Those are two very different sentences.

Try this today. Think back to the first time you remember feeling ashamed of failing. Who was there? What did they say? Just notice it. A lot of the fear you feel now is borrowed from that moment, and seeing where it came from loosens its grip a little.

Stop Pretending You've Never Failed

Here's something anyone who has ever hired people will recognise. In interviews, we often ask candidates to describe a time they failed. The point isn't to humiliate anyone or catch them out. The point is simple: can you own a mistake and tell us what you learned from it?

And yet, over and over, the answer is some version of "I've never really failed." People are so afraid to admit a mistake to a future employer that they'd rather give an answer nobody believes.

It isn't just job interviews, though. We're so afraid of being judged for our failings that we bury them deep inside us. So deep, at times, that we can't even admit them to ourselves, let alone anyone else.

So answer the interview question for yourself, privately. Finish this sentence in a notebook: "A time I really failed was..." Then write one more line: "What it taught me was..." If the second line is hard, that's fine. It means there's still a lesson waiting for you.

Admit It to Yourself First

When we don't face our mistakes head-on, we make an even bigger one. We miss the lesson. And when we miss the lesson, we don't recognise the signs the next time we're walking down that same road. Guess what happens? We make the exact same mistake again.

Or we go the other way. We shut ourselves off from the opportunity completely, because we're still holding the hurt from the first time around.

In both cases, we aren't helping our chances. Life is trying to teach us something, and we're plain ignoring it. So life does what life does. It puts us back in the same situation until we learn what we were meant to.

So do yourself a favour. Set a timer for ten minutes and write down one failure you've swept under the rug. Then answer three questions: What actually happened? What part of it was mine? What would I do differently now? That's it. No essay, no verdict. Just the truth on a page.

Because the moment you do that, something incredible happens.

You will be free.

You'll feel lighter. You'll also have the wisdom you were supposed to take from the experience in the first place. You'll be more objective about the decisions in front of you. And most of all, you'll find the courage to get back up again.

Be Kind to Yourself on the Way Back Up

A lot of us believe we need to be hard on ourselves to do better next time. That if we go easy, we'll get lazy. It turns out the opposite may be closer to the truth.

In a set of four experiments by researchers at UC Berkeley, people who were encouraged to treat a recent mistake or weakness with self-compassion reported more motivation to improve, and in one study spent longer preparing for a difficult test after an initial failure. It's one line of research rather than the final word, but it matches what many of us learn the hard way: shame makes us hide, kindness makes us try again.

So the next time you fail, write yourself the note you'd write to a friend who'd just been through the same thing. You'd never tell them they're useless. You'd tell them it was a hard day, that they're more than this one result, and that they get to try again. You deserve to hear that too.

Get Back Up, Again and Again

There's a line you've probably seen credited to Nelson Mandela, about our greatest glory lying not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. Mandela did use it, but Quote Investigator traces the idea back to Oliver Goldsmith, writing in the 1760s. Whoever said it first, the point stands. The glory is in getting up after the fall.

Because the reality is, we all make mistakes. We all fall sometimes. If we never do, then either we aren't living with much zest and purpose, or we just can't admit that we've failed. Either way, we aren't doing justice to the time we've been given.

Failing is a stepping stone to growth. Without it there's nothing to improve, nothing to change, and no lesson to carry you somewhere new. If you're wondering whether to try again or walk away, our piece on when giving up is the right choice can help you tell the difference. And if you've decided to begin again, read why starting over can be a good thing.

Pick one small step you can take this week toward the thing you failed at. Send the email. Book the class. Have the conversation. Small is fine. Small is how most comebacks start.

This Is Not the End

We believe that every failure carries something you need, if you're willing to look at it. Not as punishment. As information. As the next chapter asking to be written.

So if you've failed, and you're still wallowing in the hurt, it's time to stop licking your wounds. It's time to get up, learn from it, and start again. If things feel hard right now, our guide to getting through tough times with resilience is a good place to go next. And if a setback has left you feeling low for weeks and it won't lift, please talk to a doctor or a therapist. That's not failing either. That's getting up.

Consider this your beginning.

What's a failure that turned out to teach you something? Tell us in the comments. Someone else might need to hear it today.