We all have failed from one time to another.
Most of us have cut down on our curiosity, our enthusiasm to pursue new innovations, our drive to change the world with our businesses.
Because failure has maimed us. As a disease, it has eaten way deep into minds and caused chao wherever it been.
Here are a couple of ways to come out stronger than you were before you failed:
Examine Yourself for Hidden Biases
The beautiful thing about the brain is its way of operation. Being the highest consumer of energy in the body the brain tries it best to cut down on most of its many processes.
The brain does this through a process called heuristic.
Heuristics are simply mental shortcuts that allow people to solve problems and make judgements by simply showing previous mental pictures of how something was solved or judged.
For example, the last time you probably fixed a back pain issue was by doing a few stretches here and there and the pain disappeared. The interesting thing is, next time that happens, to stop you from thinking and wasting brain power, the brain will instantly bring to your memory that last solution — stretching.
This indirectly helps you solve problems and hastens your judgements, but according to 1970s psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, heuristics being great and fastens solutions doesn’t mean it’s always right.
This brings us back to failure.
What sort of heuristics has our brain developed and show us each time we think of certain failures we’ve had?
What image does you brain bring up for you each time you try to try?
- You wanted to try writing again.
Brain: “Let me show you an image of how you failed multiple times the last time you tried.”
- Someone told you to try and love again.
Brain: “Let me show you a video of the three times you’ve caught guys cheating on you.”
- You tell yourself, I need to get her number.
Brain: “Hey, check out the video of the last three rejections you’ve had in a roll. 3 ladies said no before you even tried.”
It’s quite interesting. The brain doesn’t know if the image will work or not, it simply shows you the most prominent images you may have on that to see if they’re the solutions you seek.
But I think the major issue come up when we’ve made decisions around the images our brain projects to us in each scenarios. These decisions, if negative, become the biases we’re talking about.
- So as an example, the first guy above wanting to write again may decide after been showed that same image again and again that — “I’m a failure, and my writing isn’t any good.”
- The second person may decide and agree to the notion that — “All men are cheats and none should be trusted.”
- The third person may believe and decide that — “I don’t have confidence and any lady I approach will tell me NO.”
You see how we form biases? Unhealthy mindsets?
The thing that holds us bound is rarely not the event of failure we witness but the mindsets our minds have formed and believed about it over time.
Always Question Everything
Mindsets are automated in nature. To overcome failure in any part of our lives we need to constantly be in state of curiosity. Always questioning why we think something won’t work or why we think a certain way.
Of course,
- When you start questioning why you always say, “I’m a failure, and my writing isn’t any good”, your brain will show you an image of how many times you’ve tried and failed.
- When you start questioning why you always say, “All men are cheats and none should be trusted”, your brain will bring up images of the guys in your life at different time that cheated on you and broke your heart.
- When you start questioning why you always say, “I don’t have confidence and any lady I approach will tell me NO”, your brain will bring up the files of rejection you’ve had when you approached ladies in school.
That’s first stage.
Now when you start questioning the images by asking, “How can I get better at this?” “Who can help me?”
The brain won’t probably have such images or solutions stored up, hence will go into deep rooted thinking or prompt you to go researching or seek for help.
Reprogramming is a Full Time Job
When you see the cracks in your mindset, the next step is to rebuild the entire thing.
To change the way you see failure, you may have to sit down and plan a coup d’etat on the brain. Best way to do that is to write out the entire opposite of the image you’re always shown.
- “I’m a failure, and my writing isn’t any good”
Your new response — I’m a super success and my writing is the best in town!
- “All men are cheats and none should be trusted”
Your new response — I’m a priceless jewel and I attract the right kind of men. And there are still wonderful men out there who can be trusted to do the right thing.
- “I don’t have confidence and any lady I approach will tell me NO”
Your new response — I’m a confident young man and every lady would be elated to have me engage them in a conversation.
What you’re simply doing here is tricking the brain to believe these new set of response or projected image and have them replace the old toxic ones that have been there all these while.
Sadly, since the old images took time to stick, the new ones must take time to replace the old ones too. It isn’t what you’ll do once and forget. It can’t be automated, you must be conscious about it and keep declaring or affirming those new beliefs to yourself until they stick.
Action Follows Change
The positivity of the new affirmations will instantly spring up a desire in you to retry that action and see how it goes. At this point is where you really start growing again.
There is mostly no activity except there is a desire, that desire will bring growth that will change the processes of what once stopped you.
Am I saying you won’t see failure again after trying again? No. You might keep seeing them, but your resolve to retrying is all that matters.
Have you failed before? Try again.
