Self-Improvement

11 Proven Ways Smart People Use Failure to Their Advantage

Published on February 17, 2019

Life is not a cakewalk. You don’t just get things you want and when you want them. It is a Sisyphean task, life! You must keep going at it with the simple hope that, one day, things will change.

The sad part is that, most people, especially young people at that, give up hope and choose two equally bad ways of dealing with emptiness.

One, they commit suicide, giving into the pressures of life and the failures that come with them or, two, and this is in no way better, they become cynics who are too young to be so.

Cynicism is a way of life but it is not a great place to be in. Imagine not being affected by anything; things will happen, the world will keep on showing new things to you while you simply stay unperturbed, a stoic.

That is not the way, let me tell you.

Failure is one of the many stepping stones that life provides in order for you to climb higher and reach the end of the tunnel.

Remember, it is men who are impatient, God isn’t!

Whatever is meant to be yours, will be. But you must bear the blows patiently.

Here are eleven ways that show not only patience but also willingness to change and adapt, which are very important things when it comes to success and excellence.

1. Having a sense of humor

“Life is all about guessing, and it takes a while to know that you are guessing right.” I didn’t say this but someone I admire and love watching did, in an interview: Jerry Seinfeld.

Unless you have a sense of humor, unless you laugh with the world and not at it, you will never find the way to succeed truly, because it takes more than skepticism to get through the worries of the world. Affirmations will help you deal with failures in a much better way.

2. Acceptance

When you admit that you don’t know something, you aren’t belittling yourself. Instead, think of it this way: you are actually asking the person in front of you to make you learn it in the proper way, so that the next time you face the same task, you do not shy away. Also, meditate to be able to better accept life as it is.

Self-acceptance is one of the most important ways of being successful, because, well, unless you accept who you are, you don’t know who you are truly.

3. Friendship

Make new friends when you are feeling down. Force yourself into situations that encourage making new friends. And friendship is like caramel; it necessarily makes everything better. It gives you an unconscious push. Especially when you are with friends, life’s challenges and setbacks can be overcome far more easily.

4. Learn to think around

When man is beset with a challenge, it drives him to rethink the situation, reevaluate it and, finally, think around the problem to succeed. Engage in proactive thoughts. That is what human evolution has been all about, since millions of years ago.

5. Self-discovery

It is in that hullabaloo when you are thinking thrice as harder than usual to solve a problem that you actually find out newer and much more potent versions of your old-self. You rediscover a part of yourself you used to love but left behind.

6. It is all a learning curve

Treat every setback as a lesson from the book of life. If you weren’t meant to achieve what you want, you wouldn’t be failing. If you hadn’t failed at first, you wouldn’t have learned what not to do.

And the first thing that you should not do is to assume that you will succeed on the first go itself.

7. You learn newer skills

That helps you to not fall for the same trap again. If you are stuck in traffic every time you have a meeting, learn how to run, learn how to ride a bike, hell, try your best to fly, but get yourself to that meeting and do your best to ace it.

A must read article: Grandfather Writes Powerful Open Letter to His Grandkids About Childhood

8. Learning the value of time

A lot of time, failure is caused by a lack of judgement when it comes to managing time. Time is a huge resource and every challenge will help you figure out how to manage it better. Use the method called Eisenhower matrix to improve yourself.