How to Fail Well: Tips on Bouncing back from failure

You failed at something. Or maybe at many things. Maybe you dropped out of college, failed an exam or an interview, saw your marriage fall apart, or poured yourself into a project that didn’t bring the results you hoped for, or maybe just anything.

Failure hurts.

It quietly robs us of confidence, enthusiasm, and the willingness to try.

Sometimes it makes us want to give up and scream at ourselves or at the world. Other times, it makes us want to hide in the darkest corner we know and not show our face again.

To fail is not easy. It is not for the weak.

Society also only teaches us how to succeed and how not to fail.

And if we fail, it makes us feel as though we might be incapable of anything.

But isn’t failure the most inevitable thing on Earth? You couldn’t find one person on this planet who only went from success to success.

If it is something so unavoidable, isn’t it wise to actually learn how to fail well because fail, we all will.

So today I want to share some thoughts on how to fail well so that we can bounce back from our failures instead of letting them paralyse us.

How to fail well: The Art of Bouncing Back Stronger

Table of Contents

How to fail well- Tips on how to bounce back from failure- how to overcome failure

1. Reframe your failure

Yes, you failed. So what?

Are you going to let this failure paralyse you, or are you going to use it as an opportunity to show your grit and courage?

Reframe what you’re telling yourself about your failure(s).

Out of failings are born learnings, and out of our learnings are born our successes.

So in this way, Failure is actually the mother of success, and success is its daughter.

So treat your failures with importance.

Own it. Learn from it.

Also, learn to separate your failure from your identity.

If you failed at something, say the truth, which is simply, “I failed at this thing”, and NOT:

“I am a failure”
“I am a loser”
“I know nothing”
“I am an idiot”
“I can do nothing right”

The more you identify yourself with your failure, the more you paralyse yourself, and it becomes true (because our thoughts and beliefs end up becoming our reality).

So change this.

Be very careful about the words you use after the words ‘I’ or ‘I am’. And I don’t say this lightly.

Learn to affirm positive words after ‘I am’ until they reach the very core of your being and believe them.

Then see how you do things differently.

2. Change what you’re telling yourself

Society treats failures as if they’re the most dreadful thing.

Failing makes you feel as if you’ve committed a crime.

There is so much shame and abandonment, and so when we fail, it naturally shapes what we tell ourselves.

It makes you doubt yourself whether you’ll ever amount to anything. You start believing that you are bound to fail in anything you try.

And I won’t tell you here that all of this is not true, because it could be true.

If you believe you will fail, it most definitely could act as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you will fail again.

But then again, all of this could also be false.

It all depends on how you look at failure, how you manage your failings and your perspective after failing. And it all starts with what you’re telling yourself.

So change what you’re telling yourself.

I know your mind might be telling you all kinds of stuff. The intrusive thoughts will come, but you don’t have to believe them.

Shift your narrative instead.

Tell yourself,

I tried
I can do anything I set my mind to
But still, I am not defeated.
But still, I rise.
Fall seven times. Stand up Eight.

And don’t listen to people who say things to you from the safety of their comfort zone.

One of my favourite quotes by Brené Brown is “If you’re not also in the arena getting your ass kicked, I’m not interested in your feedback.”

3. Follow small routines

I know it’s hard to keep going.

You want to give up because giving up is easy. You don’t have to dare and bear the risk of failing again.

You feel like all you want to do is make your life a mess, give up trying, and distract yourself from the shame and hurt.

But you know deep inside that living this way doesn’t satisfy you either.

It is killing you that you’re wasting away your life, but you can’t do anything either.

I want to add here that what helps is following simple, small routines.

Routine anchors our day and makes our days feel worthwhile.

Start with the small ones.

Follow a simple morning routine and a simple evening routine.

Simply decide what you want to do after waking up and do them one after another.

Instead of reaching for your phone first thing in the morning, use that one hour to nourish yourself.

Mine goes like Prayer → Journaling → Writing → Reading → Exercise. So, for this, I have to wake up early.

Choose how you want to spend your mornings and evenings.

Start an exercise routine or a routine after your work, coming home.

And stick to them.

It makes you feel sane and quietens your noisy mind.

4. Keep your small promises

When we fail at something or many things, the biggest blow we get is to our self-confidence.

Failure erodes our self-belief and fills our hearts with fear and shame.

You might feel that time or God just doesn’t favour you, or you fear that you might not amount to anything.

You might start to believe that you are doomed to failure and that nothing you do could be a success.

It’s hard to rise to how you were before you failed.

You recall how you were and feel almost as if it was someone else.

That determination, that zeal, that enthusiasm, that drive, that willingness- seems to have been lost in time, and you mourn your own old self.

But I want to tell you that you can bring it back.

It starts by keeping your smallest to small promises.

Always remember that the first relationship you have in this world is with yourself.

So treat your words and promises with care, as you would treat them for your lover.

If your lover failed to show up at the airport after telling you that he/she would, how would you feel?

If your friend planned a get-together but didn’t show up, how would you feel?

If your partner told you they’d be there at 7, but didn’t show up until 10, how would you feel?

You would feel hurt. You would feel angry. You might not rely on them again. You would feel rejected.

We forget that it is the same with ourselves, too. That is why most of us have so much anger and criticism against our own selves.

The more we don’t do what we said we would do, the more our self-belief and self-confidence erodes.

We begin to feel we can’t trust ourselves, and this disrupts our relationship with ourselves.

So start by keeping small promises.

Following them and showing up for them, no matter how little, is what slowly builds up our confidence in ourselves and makes our fears go away.

These promises don’t have to be big, but following them has a big impact.

Every day, keep one small promise to yourself and make sure you follow it through.

They could be anything like:

Today I won’t use my phone right after waking up
Today I will exercise for 20 mins
Today I will cook for myself

Start keeping them and see how your confidence and faith in yourself slowly builds up.

5. Extract the lessons

Never be so arrogant that you don’t learn the lessons from your failures.

Also, learn to take criticism and be wise enough and also open enough to take feedback and criticism from people.

Every failure carries within it a seed of wisdom, if we’re willing to look closely.

But most of the time, we’re so caught up in the sting of disappointment, shame, or regret that we miss what it came to teach us.

Instead of asking “Why did this happen to me?” try asking

What is this teaching me?
What did this experience reveal about me?
What blind spots did it uncover?
What could I do differently next time?
What strengths did I discover in myself while going through this?

Sometimes the lesson could be realising that you need to prepare better, manage your time, or improve a skill.

Stop rationalising what you could have done. Quit thinking about if onlys and what ifs.

There is no use pondering over spilt milk. There is nothing you can do about it now. The milk has already spilt.

What matters is what you do now from this moment on.

Anyway, at other times, the lesson could be things like learning patience, decisiveness, humility, or the importance of asking for help.

Nothing gives better feedback than failure.

Take your endeavours as simple experiments.

Just as an experiment that “fails” gives a scientist valuable data for the next trial, your own failures are simply information about what doesn’t work for you.

If you can take even one lesson from a setback, then it was not wasted.

6. Keep a ‘done’ list

Most of us keep a to-do list, but after failure, it’s easy to feel like we’re achieving nothing.

That’s where a done list helps. One where you list out all the things that you did in your day.

Depending on your energy, your feelings and your mental health, anything can be included in your Done list.

Sometimes, just ironing your clothes could also be an achievement worth noting.

And you can include it in your done list.

This simple act shifts your focus from what’s missing to what’s moving.

7. You have no right to the outcome

The Bhagavad Gita puts this beautifully,

Karmanye vadhikaraste ma phaleshu kadachana,
ma karmaphalaheturbhurma te sangostvakarmani.

What it means is that “You have the right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Do your work sincerely, but don’t get attached to the results. The effort is yours, but the outcome is not in your hands.“

You don’t have any right to the outcome.

You only have the right to your efforts. Only your effort is in your hands.

So do your work without any attachment to the outcome.

What you wish for might come or might not come, but it should not affect the effort you give for it.

Detach yourself from the results. Do the work. Let go of the rest.

8. Fail forward

The key to failing well is to fail forward and not backwards.

Every failure gives us two choices- to fail backwards or to fail forward.

It all depends on how you manage your failure.

To fail forward means to take what you learned and apply it to your next step. It means to start with something small and then keep moving.

Failing forward means that you’re not letting it be a dead end, but a redirection.

So fall seven times, stand up eight, as the Japanese Proverb says

Closing Thoughts on Failing Well

Failure is not the opposite of success; it is a part of it.

When you fail, it doesn’t mean you’re finished. It means you’re being redirected. It means you dared to try, and that in itself is courage.

So don’t be afraid of failing. Be afraid of never daring.

We’re not here to be safe. We’re here to get bruised and get burned by the things we want and love because that’s how we will discover our own strength, resilience and brilliance.

Be afraid of staying so safe that you never venture into new things.

Success is not just about reaching the destination, but it’s about who we become along the way.

And failure is the teacher that shapes that becoming.

So the next time you stumble, remember this: Success is the daughter of failure.

And each time you rise again, you’re already succeeding.

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Hello, I'm Vishaka!

How to Fail Well: Tips on Bouncing back from failure