Loving Yourself After Failure

The definition of failure is simply a lack of success. You set your sights on a goal and came up short. And because you link success directly to the overall goal, when you don’t achieve it, you might classify it accordingly. If you are guilty of not acknowledging your progress along the way, I encourage you to check out the Celebrate Small Wins blog.

Many have had their eye on a goal and have also faced evasive achievement. JK Rowling faced 12 rejections from the major publishing houses for the Harry Potter manuscript. Colonel Sanders faced 1,009 rejections before he found success. Even Micheal Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. When success escapes you, it can be a blow to your self-esteem, diminishes your optimistic view, or plots you on a path opposite of self-love.

There is a path to loving yourself after failure. Consider these few steps to move you from being plagued by your failure to being motivated by it.

• Don’t label yourself a failure. Acknowledge that you are a work in progress. Although you can strive for perfection, remember that even if you don’t achieve it, you are steps ahead of where you first started.
• Identify an area of improvement and shoot for progress in that area. You can only eat the cookie one bite at a time. So rather than focus on trying to fix all the things, pick one for your next goal.
• Ask for help. It is easy to feel like you are on an island, but I promise you others have been where you have been. Seek support from those around you as you approach your journey to success again.

Winston Churchill stated, “Success consists of going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Failure in some aspects is a part of the journey. Knowing this as you start makes processing it when it happens a bit easier.