I learned a quote back in high school that says, “a setback is only a setup for a comeback.” There are many aspects of failing and people fail all the time. From not getting your dream job to flunking an exam you studied diligently for to being cut from the baseball team – failure comes in several different ways and every single one has one thing in common. What may that be? No, it’s not the feeling of disappointment or the sense to give up. The big common factor each one has is the opportunity to learn from your mistakes. If you are not learning and gaining knowledge from your experience of failing, then I can confidently say that you are failing at failure.

Examining the past

What better way to improve and grow as a person than by looking at what things you did wrong in your past. No other person can live your experiences so when you happen to fail, take that as an opportunity to learn and improve on things that no one else gets the chance to. Then you’ll have an advantage that no one else has. The biggest difference between average and successful people is how they handle failure and how they benefit from it in the future.

Handling failure

Here are three tips to manage and cope with failure:

1 – The most important thing to do is to not give up! Every time you are knocked down, get back on your feet and keep going. It is very challenging and difficult to overcome failure, but that is part of the process that makes you better.

2 – Change your mindset from viewing failure as a bad thing to viewing it as a good thing. When you fail, you should think “Great! Just more opportunities to learn and better myself!” That alone will help you overcome any situation.

3 – Failure can benefit you as a person if you use the experience as motivation. No one likes the feeling of being defeated, so let that give you the drive to never feel that way again.

I hope after reading this, you can examine your past mistakes and ask yourself, “Am I failing at failure?”