When you think of the word failure, a majority of individuals associate it with negativity. Failure can bring forth disappointment, hopelessness, and even lower our self-esteem. Along with those emotions, we humans may experience thoughts that try to convince us to give up or that we aren’t built for what we tried to achieve. It takes an active effort to change those automatic thinking patterns.
All About Perspective
All it takes is a conscious effort to change our perspective of personal failure to a motivator for continual success. One way to kick off this change is to combat self-deprecating thoughts with uplifting phrases. For example, which of these sounds better?
“My embarassing failure is proof that I’m terrible at this. I should give it up.”
“My failure gave me the opportunity to identify where I have room to improve. I should take this and work on becoming better. ”
———————————— How about this one? ————————————
“I failed now which means I could fail again.”
“I’ve failed before. Another failure’s only guaranteed if I do nothing to improve or give up.”
Both statements address the failure but at different angles. Take a brief moment to think of something you’re currently struggling with. If negative thoughts come to mind, practice changing the angle of those thoughts as shown above.
