Dealing With Failure
Isioma Jane Okpali
Have you ever been faced with situations where you weren’t able to perform certain tasks properly even after putting in so much efforts? Then this message is solely for you.
A fairly common understanding of “failure”, is setting a goal but not achieving it. Often times, most persons would want to drown themselves in depression over a failed task, relationship or any other aspect of life simply because things didn’t go exactly as planned. Some live by the motto: “If you’re not failing, you aren’t taking big risks.” In other words, if everything you try turns out exactly as planned all the time, then there’s every tendency that you aren’t stretching yourself and if you aren’t stretching yourself, it means you’re not growing because it will make you so comfortable.
Inasmuch as failure is a word many persons are very afraid of, it’s also a tool to lead you rightly if you are able to take advantage of it. A lot of successful persons today, dealt with a bunch of failure and disappointments in their lives before they arrived in a good place because they were consistent. So if you’ve never failed, you’ve never lived.
So the question is; how do I deal with failure?
First, you must have a clear vision of where you’re going to. If you don’t see a good future of what you’re about to do, there’s every tendency that you’ll get frustrated on the long run especially if it doesn’t work out. So you must be sure that this is what you want to do, it’s going to help you stand the test of time till you get there. It might be in career or any other.
Secondly, you must be able to learn from those failures and stop being afraid. In order to grow, you must understand that everything must not go exactly as you’ve planned all the time. This doesn’t mean you should be expecting failure but when it comes par adventure, accept it, learn and move on. Mistakes helps you rediscover yourself, rethink, reconsider and find new strategies to achieve your goals.
On a third note, you must let go of your ego. When you allow your ego to be in charge, you will keep making mistakes without having to learn. So sometimes, you must let your gourd down sometimes and be open to other people’s ideas. You don’t know everything, so let people also help you.
In conclusion, your self esteem and worth should never be tied up in success or failure. There’s a whole different between saying, “I have failed once, thrice or a hundred times” and saying “I am a failure.” It’s also easy to be obsessed with success especially in this age of social media where nearly everyone is flaunting their successes, so we don’t have an idea what persons of such have had to deal with in order to succeed. You must never allow pressures to control you. You must recognize that you’re not the worse person on earth simply because you didn’t do something rightly one time or there are blocks on the road. A failure is someone that can never do anything rightly in life so you shouldn’t equate yourself as such. You are not a failure, so you must learn how to move pass negative situations. Remember that good success is a process and it only comes to those who work for it, so I urge you to work to have a good success. This is where your real pride lies.
About the Writer
Isioma Jane Okpali holds a Bachelor’s Degree in English and Literature. She is a contemporary writer, author and host of an online show named “Moments with Emjay,”. Her work is focused on the prevailing issues in the society and an every day struggle in the individual life. Her online show is currently viewed on different social platforms.
Her published books, THE OTHER SIDE OF FRIENDSHIP(2015) and A TEST OF TIME(2018), have won her a great deal of recognition as one of the youngest authors in Nigeria. She has also written several articles in various Newspapers and other online platforms.