The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
(The best laid schemes of Mice and Men
oft go awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!)
Robert Burn’s words reflect what we all discover in your life; that no matter how well you plan things happen then can throw you off course. As we approach the end of the month many of us will have failed with our New Year resolutions despite hoping to benefit.
There is perhaps a group memory of how it feels to fail, wanting to hide from the judgement of others. Perhaps we want the earth to swallow you or to hide under the duvet. While we all know that Edison said he had found another way not to make a light bulb, his words seem to have little impact on our situation.
I prefer a more practical approach to failure. Failure is part of life and its purpose, if it has one it to help us become better at skills and behaviours. If you hide from failure then it can become depression or feeling anxious about every new situation. This can make us feel hopeless.
So to recover from failure:
Accept that you have failed, but learn the lessons, perhaps there is something you would do differently, perhaps there is a different approach or tools you could use. When you have looked at this forgive yourself. At least you were trying, you have learned something. Even if you feel you made a stupid mistake, dwelling on it can only make you feel worse about yourself so say I won’t do that and move on.
Check that your goal, your destination has not changed. Perhaps something you have learned means that you want to do something different. Perhaps you want to take a smaller step to get to your ultimate goal. Adjusting your goals can make success easier.
Finally get back on the horse. Don’t let failure put you off taking the steps along the road to the changes that you want to make. We all find change hard, we find the prospect of failure unpleasant, yet without both how can we develop as a person.