You made a big mistake at work. Maybe you lost an important deal or sent which you shouldn’t have. Or perhaps your business failed, or you lost your job. No matter what went wrong, our first instinct is to feel sorry for ourselves.
We often think we need to punish ourselves first before facing reality. But this only makes us feel worse and doesn’t help us avoid repeating the mistake. We need a better way to handle failure.
From a young age, we learn that failing is wrong. Our parents tell us after a bad grade. Teachers remind us when we don’t know an answer. Friends bully us when we lose. Even our favorite sports team losing makes us think failure is bad.
Still, failure is also seen as a key to success. If we laugh at ourselves and feel ashamed enough, it can push us to do better.
When we are very young, we handle failure easily. If we fall while learning to walk, we get right up and try again. But as we grow older, we see that winning is what people celebrate. Failures are seen as bad. When we become teenagers, we are expected to know what we want to do with our lives. Trying new things and taking risks are often discouraged.
However, attitudes toward failure are slowly changing around the world. In Israel, for example, investors are more willing to fund entrepreneurs who have already failed. We could also learn to accept our failures instead of hiding from them. Better yet, we should learn to celebrate them.
Why celebrate failures?
It helps us stay open and build stronger bonds with others.
When we share our failures with close friends or even on social media, it encourages others to open up too. It helps us shake off shame. Keeping failure a secret only makes us feel worse. Talking about it slowly makes that shame go away.
If we ignore failures, life gets boring. We will succeed all the time and never learn. We won’t see where we need to improve or learn from our mistakes. Failures are necessary. The more we face them, the easier it becomes. We get better at handling the pain. And if we fail, it means we took a chance. We tried something even if we weren’t certain it would work. That is something to be proud of.
Successful entrepreneurs accept failure. That is part of why they succeed. They fail, learn from mistakes, and then change their plans fast.
People tend to hide from failure. We want to blame others, feel ashamed, or just hide away. But when we openly celebrate our failures, it feeds our soul. It shows that failure is normal.
In the end, failure is unavoidable. The route to success is full of mistakes. Sometimes, the bigger the mistake, the more we learn about life. Everyone has called themselves a loser at some point. Everyone has felt that failure is a constant part of life.