How do deal with failure?
That is an excellent question. People often struggle with a sense of failure and it can become quite a burden for some. I think the essential things is to resist attaching failure to your ego or static idea you have about who you are. When you attach an experience of failure to yourself, you have taken something that is transient and made it static. That is when we feel the heaviness emotionally. Instead of using the experience to measure yourself, instead measure the experience. How was it? Did I partially succeed? Did I put forth appropriate effort? Were conditions not favorable? If I failed in what I set out to do, can I simply make an adjustment?
People are often afraid to test their limits because of a fear of failure. If we never fail, we are likely trying to stay safe within our comfort zone. This, unfortunately, makes for a small circle. The irony of a comfort zone is that it is, in many ways, uncomfortable in there.
Failing at something you set out to do is not what causes the emotional pain. Attachment causes the pain by wanting things to be different from how they are. I intended to win, and I didn’t, but I still am attached to the want of having won, instead of losing. Now I am suffering from having lost. Before, I merely lost.
So let failure be a transient experience. Learn from it, make adjustments if necessary, accept it when it occurs and resist turning it into something permanent. There is a big difference between saying I failed at something and saying I am a failure.
Cheers. Now go take on the day.