If you’ve ever failed at anything in life, it most likely forced you to think deeply about the situation and everything surrounding it. When we fail, we have a tendency to ponder, but when we succeed, we have a tendency to party. Yes, success must be celebrated, but failure should be embraced as well.

Why Failure Can Be a Good Thing

Failure can be a good thing. Think about it! When we fail at something it humbles us and forces us to examine ourselves and come to grips with our state as human and thus liable to experience failure. It’s through our failures that we gain deeper insights into life, that we expand our horizons, and put our ego in check. If we always win and don’t experience failure, how on God’s green earth are we going to have anything to compare our success to? In other words, how will we appreciate our successes?

Now, every failure is not equal! Some will hit harder than others, and some will be downright destructive and definitely not a good thing. For example, if you’re attending college and you are barely making it as far as the tuition, and you’re in your last semester doing your finals, AND you know that they will be increasing the tuition for the next semester – failing your finals would be disastrous. So in instances like this, failure is not (and cannot) be a good thing. But if you went to your game and your team lost because of you, that’s terrible, but you could learn from it and do better next time.

“If you’ve never failed at anything, then you’ve never pushed yourself past your comfort zone.” – Eugénie Nugent

So How Does One Overcome Failure

You overcome failure by first understanding that failure is not the end – but the precursor to a new beginning, then subtracting the lesson(s) from your losses and then tossing them. Failure can only break you if you let it. Everyone fail at some point or another, but not everyone get back up and try again. All too often, we’re so interested in the instant satisfaction and immediate attainment of things that we’re usually unwilling to tough things out for the long term. However, by toughing it out and not giving up, failure can be used as a platform – it can be a launching-board towards something incredible.

3 Things You Must Do to Overcome the Defeat You Experience in The Wake of Failure

1. Forget About What Others Think About You

For many of us, the biggest part of failing is the shame that comes from not accomplishing something we set out to – especially when there are people who are looking on and thus able to see us fail. That embarrassment at a time when you feel like your world is crashing down on you and you’re thinking, “Oh my God, what are they going to think of me?” can take a toll on you. But only if you let it! You have to garner enough confidence in yourself to know that what others think of you is immaterial. It doesn’t matter what they think! Shift the focus instead to yourself, and start taking a deeper look at why you failed – self assessment. Look for the lessons!

When Sylvester Stallone was rejected over 1500 times by agents in New York City and didn’t have enough money to pay his $25 electricity bill so he had to sell his dog, how do you think he felt? What do you think his friends and family members were saying? And, where would Sylvester Stallone be today if he had given up hope on his dreams, caved in, and gotten a 9-to-5 job? It doesn’t matter how you look in front of other people. What matters is that you don’t give up on your hopes and dreams, keep pushing through, and break through your present-day limitation and failure.

2. Don’t Spend All Your Time Lamenting, Instead Learn

What you have to take away from failure is the lesson that failure gives you. If you spend too much time lamenting and either feeling sorry for yourself or being angry with yourself, you will waste precious time when you could be deducting the lessons and learning instead. Anna Wintour, the famed Vogue Editor, was fired just 9 months on the job at Harper’s Bazaar because the editor thought she was too edgy. But, getting fired there helped her to dig deep and learn from that, taking away an important lesson that pushed her through the tough times and on to greater things.

3. Re-Focus and Re-Position

One of the worst aspect of failure is a total and complete loss of focus. When everything around you collapse, it’s hard to stay focused. When it seems like your whole world is crumbling, it takes an extraordinary amount of focus to regain your footing. But as previously stated, you have to be aware that failure is not the end of the world, and it’s only as bad as you make it out to be in your mind. You have to re-focus, re-position and begin again – using your lesson as a catalyst for more effectual change that will this time ensure you do not fail.

When J.K. Rowling, the famed writer of the Harry Potter series, was fired from her secretarial job for working on the book in her spare time, it wasn’t the end of the world for her. Although it took her 7 years to publish that first book, and suffering through government assistance, a divorce, and the death of her mother, she did it. She persevered! She focused and envisioned a bigger and better life, and you can too!

With love, gratitude, and empowered attitude,