I used to think those reality baking shows were so dramatic… maybe they are, but as it turns out so am I. This year, I had ONE JOB for Thanksgiving. To bake the cherry pie. And I completely botched it. And then completely freaked out and started thinking I was a big fat failure (yes, because I couldn’t bake a pie. *face palm* ) If you’re dealing with a personal failure today, you might be feeling the same way I was. Crushed after your hard work failed, a bit embarrassed that you made a mistake, or disappointed in yourself. But don’t give in to self doubt just yet. I’m about to share with you my steps for How to Overcome Failure and Get Your Self Confidence Back. I’ll talk about where self confidence comes from, how to get more of it, and the steps you need to take to overcome failure.
Hold on tight, bebe, things are about to look up.
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The Internal Struggle of Failure
I’ve made cherry pies before (and they were delicious, if I do say so myself), so I thought baking the Thanksgiving cherry pie would be oh-so-simple. But instead I made the thickest, ooiest-gooiest and starchiest cherry mess you’ve ever seen. Looking back now, it’s actually pretty funny. But of course, in the moment, I was super upset. It sounds ridiculous, but I honestly almost let it ruin my whole night.
Why? Because I let myself fall down the rabbit hole of self doubt. Obviously, if something as small as a messed up pie made me feel this bad, I was already struggling with my self worth. I might be the only one to feel this way from time to time, but maybe you can relate…
You feel like you’re a failure
A single failure is enough to make you wonder if maybe you’re a failure.
You begin to tie your worth to whatever goal, job or dream you were trying to accomplish. You think if you failed, that must make you a failure.
For example, my thoughts sounded like this: Baking dessert is the only form of baking/cooking I’ve ever done well! If I can’t even make a pie, how am I supposed to ever cook for my future family?
Yeesh. Dramatic much?
Let me be clear: I’ve failed WAYYY bigger than a bad dessert. But sometimes, it’s the small, seemingly insignificant fails that can push us over the edge and into a self-doubting spiral.
You get scared to ever try again
While examining how to overcome failure, I realized. The follow up thought from “I’m a failure” is oftentimes the fear-based idea to just stop trying altogether.
Because giving up feels easier than a repeat of trying, giving your all, and then falling flat on your face. The crushing disappointment just doesn’t feel worth it.
But it is. Keep reading to find out how to overcome failure AND how to use it to your advantage.
Feeling like that sucked. And pulling myself out of the self sabotaging rut I’d dug myself into took a hot minute. If you’ve ever, ever felt like a failure or struggled to get through your own screw up (big or small), then this is for you.
Fear of judgement from others
One of the most humbling aspects of failure, is that whatever facade of being perfect we had created comes crashing down. It means the people around us get to see that we are only human!
And that’s kind of unnerving.
Maybe you’re scared that people will look down on you for your failure. Or, maybe you’re worried they’ll think you’re a fraud who’s been faking your success/intelligence/skills this whole time.
Whatever your fear is of other people’s opinions and judgement of you, remember this:
- You’re the one who tried the thing. They’re the ones who sat back and watched.
- And my personal favorite: What others think of you is none of your business. That’s one of the hardest pills to swallow.
We all care to some extent what other people think of us. It’s human nature. But don’t let that keep you from trying at something worthwhile.
Where Self Confidence Comes From (and Where it Shouldn’t)
While I was working through how to overcome my failure, I also had to examine where I was getting my self confidence from. Or where it SHOULD come from.
Let’s start with the good news: Self confidence doesn’t come external factors. Self confidence comes from your belief in who you are and you’re belief in what you’re capable of.
If you KNOW you can succeed at something, but perhaps you didn’t succeed THIS time… Then you can maintain your self confidence. Or get it back, when it wavers.
Self confidence doesn’t come from your successes. This is key to keep in mind when trying to figure out how to overcome failure. While I’m at it, self confidence also doesn’t come from:
- What you look like (beauty fades, weight fluctuates)
- Your grades in school (life happens, and every now and then you might fail or “C” a test… or even a whole course)
- How many people like your Instagram pics (do those people even really know you? Or care about you?)
- What the scale says when you step onto it (our bodies are sooo much cooler than that number)
- Who you date (he’s probably a decent guy–if he’s not, whatcha doin’ sis??–but he’s only human and can’t be your constant pep talker)
- Your position at work or the job you hold
- How many friends you have (I used to have tons of friends and we’d hang out all the time… Now I’m an adult and have about 5 friends spread throughout the States. I see them maybe 3-4 times a year if I’m lucky.)
Self confidence has to come from within for it to truly last. Because outside things change allll the time. But, if your confidence comes from inside you, then external factors might sway you, but they can’t break your confidence.
You can have self confidence while still knowing you’ve got room to grow, and while still accepting the times you fail.
How to Get Your Self Confidence Back: Get Over Not Being Perfect
One of the ways you can get your self confidence back is to take the lessons failure teaches you.
1. Sit Down, Be Humble
Kendrick Lamar said it best. “Sit down, be humble.” Failure teaches us that for all our scurrying about, overthinking, manipulating, and scrambling for perfection, being perfect is not a thing. So we shouldn’t act like it is.
Embrace humility. Be grown enough to admit your errors, and don’t blame it on others. Even if your failure involved other people, their faults are not yours to point out. Take responsibility for your part in the failure.
It sounds weird, but if you can accept that you failed, and find that humility within you, it’s easier to get your self confidence back. Ego and perfectionism often contribute to our struggle when working toward how to overcome failure. Our self confidence wavers when we can’t accept that we’re imperfect beings who spend a good deal of our lives screwing things up.
Once we can separate our self confidence from our longing to be perfect, our self confidence becomes more stable.
And less on-and-off again, like your relationship with that guy you met on Hinge.
2. Remind Yourself You Tried at Something That Mattered
Hey! You tried and failed at something that mattered! That’s seriously awesome. Some people go through life and seem to almost never fail… but that’s usually only because they never really tried anything challenging to begin with.
Getting your self confidence back after a failure is simpler when you remember that you tried to do something that was important to you. (Even if it was just trying to bake a cherry pie for your loved ones.) And failing at something important is more worthwhile than never failing because you never pushed yourself.
Please keep in mind: I’m not saying that everyone has to aim for some huge goal in their lives. The point is, if it matters to you (baking a pie, starting a business, getting married, hiking Everest, running 1 mile, running 20 miles), then it will matter to you if you fail.
But the point is, don’t let your self confidence collapse after that failure. Be proud that you tried something worthwhile, and give yourself permission to try (and potentially fail) again.
3. Celebrate What You Did Right
If you’re hyper focused on what you failed at, you might not notice all the other stuff you did that was RIGHT.
For example. One time, I tried out for jazz choir in high school. I had to sing 3 songs in front of my director. Anddd… I didn’t make the choir. I was so embarrassed and disappointed.
But while I failed (big time) at my audition, I almost forgot the fact that–wow, hey! I’ve never sung in front of anyone before! I powered through my fear of singing in front of another person!
That was a huge success for me, even if the audition wasn’t.
The point is, stop to notice where you’ve succeeded, or grown. Put your focus on that, instead of your failure. And as you make that a habit, you’ll feel your self confidence grow again.
4. Prepare to do Better Next Time
If your failure came from a lack of preparation, it can be tough to accept that maybe, you just didn’t work hard enough. But once you do accept that, you can start putting much more effort into preparing for your next goal or accomplishment.
A lack of preparation could be either mental or physical. Maybe you gave a presentation in front of a bunch of people, and even though you had an amazing slideshow set up and knew all of the information, maybe you got nervous and choked.
In that case, the lack of preparation was mental. You had all the physical requirements, but you didn’t center your focus before presenting. Or, maybe you didn’t practice it in front of people beforehand, so nerves got the best of you.
But the more you prepare for something, the more confident you’ll feel going into it. Take note of where your preparation fell short, and work harder to make sure you don’t repeat it in your next attempt.
5. Be Comforted to Know… You Might be the Only One Who Cares
This might sound harsh, but I really hope you see this for the blessing it is. People don’t think of you nearly as much as you think they do.
To flash back to my personal failure: You know the most hilarious part about my messed up pie that I had to re-make with simpler, more boring ingredients?
No one ate it. Literally no one.
I had wasted sooo much energy the night before, being upset that my first attempt failed and worrying needlessly that everyone would judge my baking skills.
The point is this: We tend to notice and feel our failures so much deeper than anyone else will. You’ve probably heard the quote, “No one is thinking about you. They’re thinking about themselves, just like you.”
It’s completely true. When we fail, we’re often embarrassed and worried that everyone will see us for the failure we think we are.
We often project our opinions of ourselves onto others.
If you worry you’re a bad driver, you probably worry others think the same of you. If you worry you’ve failed as a student, or failed as a mom, you might worry others might think the same.
But the reality is that most people don’t think of you that much.
Basic B Alert:
If you ever watched Gossip Girl, you might remember the scene when Dan Humphrey approaches Chuck Bass and tells him, “I know we don’t like each other. You think I’m a boring, sheltered nobody.”
To which Chuck replies, in the coolest way ever: “I don’t think of you.”
And unless your failure is a doozy that involves other people, their belongings, or business, people oftentimes don’t notice your failures–or think of you much either.
But if you’re reading this because your failure was, in fact, a doozy. Then read on, friend.
6 Steps for How to Overcome Failure
1. Feel Your Emotions
The first step is to allow yourself to feel what you’re feeling. Are you disappointed? Are you angry? Do you feel cheated in some way?
How you’re feeling is totally valid. It was your goal or project that didn’t succeed, after you put in your time, effort and hard work. You’re going to have some sort of emotional response to it.
The key here is to not brush it under the rug as being “not a big deal.” If you have to write down how you’re feeling, do it. If you need to scream into a pillow, then do it! You’ve got to give yourself the opportunity to wallow, and air out your emotions.
Just make sure your emotions are focused on the failure at hand, and don’t make your wallow sesh about every failure you’ve ever had.
2. Manage Any Self Destructive Thought Patterns
This is what I was talking about in the line above. Personally, I’ve noticed I’m so hard on myself that a mistake can easily turn into a “Sav Sucks” chorus in my head. When working on how to overcome failure, you don’t have time to deal with a self sabotaging thought pattern.
My boyfriend has called me out on it a few times (in love, obviously), and noted that when I’m disappointed in myself, I often worry everyone else is too. But that thought pattern doesn’t do me, or the people around me, any good. And it doesn’t fix whatever I screwed up on anyway.
When you’re feeling your emotions (Step 1), you need to manage any self destructive tendencies and thought patterns you have. How do you do that?
Force yourself to think logically. This is the step you’ll have to be stern with yourself on.
If you find yourself thinking, “Ugh, I can’t do ANYTHING right!”, then check yourself. Sometimes, it helps to talk to yourself the same way you’d talk to a disgruntled, upset child.
“Okay, self, is that really true? Have you really never done anything right at all? Didn’t you just (enter whatever thing, big or small, that you recently rocked) correctly the other day?”
This kind of logical thinking forces you to stop being so emotional, and instead to look at the situation factually.
If you find yourself thinking “I’m a failure/loser,” then try shifting your focus to people you love and respect.
Mentally examine their lives, and where they may have failed or made a big mistake. Did you call them a loser during their learning period? Did you think of them that way? Of course not! (If you did, you might want to tone down your judgement haha). You don’t think those people are failures just because they messed up. So, of course, you shouldn’t think you are either.
And for my fellow Jesus people, remember this:
God knew every single failure you’d ever make. He knew you’d fail the class, go into debt, wreck the relationship, struggle with that addiction, get that $300 speeding ticket, let down your best friend, confuse tapioca starch with tapioca flour, and any other screw up you can think of.
You might be struggling with how to overcome failure. But God knew all of your failures before you even existed. And He still wanted you here. He doesn’t think you’re a failure. He’s given you life to keep trying and to pursue great things. And if God doesn’t see you as a failure, then you shouldn’t either.
3. Talk It Out
This is a step that a lot of people shy away from. Because it’s uncomfortable and we don’t like to talk about our failures out loud.
They don’t make for fun stories in the moment (if ever), and they reveal our vulnerabilities and imperfections.
But as hard as it might be to open up about our failures, sometimes opening up is the perfect remedy for our down-and-out attitudes.
Ask a friend to go get coffee with you. Give your mom a call. If you have a co-worker you’re close to, chat with them on your lunch break (or over Zoom… however your work is doing these days during a pandemic). Whoever it is, open up to them about your failure, your disappointment, and how you’re feeling overall. This is a vulnerable, yet effective step in learning how to overcome failure.
Talking with someone about your struggle does a few things:
- It helps put things in perspective
- You have the chance to express how you’re feeling to someone other than yourself
- You’re setting yourself up to receive encouragement
4. Change Your Perspective
This point might be kind of annoying if you’re in the middle of dealing with your frustration, but I’m gonna tell it to you anyway.
If you see every failure as just another example of you not being good enough, you’re doing it wrong. Failure is such an incredible opportunity to better yourself, love yourself unconditionally, and learn something new.
It sounds super annoying when someone says that to you when you’re not quite “over it”, right? “Just take this as a learning opportunity.” Like okay, great, shut up already. But it’s true either way.
If you gotta skip the rest of this post to go back and do steps 1-3, go for it! My feelings won’t be hurt. But when you’re in the right mindframe, read this point again and try this:
| Instead of… | Try saying… |
| “I messed up AGAIN. What’s wrong with me?” | “Okay, this is something I continuously struggle with. What exactly is tripping me up, so I make sure I avoid that next time?” |
| “Why can’t I nail this? My work is never good enough!” | “I’m only human and no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be perfect–and that’s okay. I’ll just keep pushing myself to do better as I learn.” |
| “I can’t believe I messed up such a huge opportunity.” | “I learned a lot from this experience. Next time I have an opportunity in front of me, I’ll make sure I ____.” |
Every story, good or bad, can be spun into something else. It’s your job to spin your failures into something that motivates you, and hopefully others as well.
(Not: I’m not talking about lying when I say “spin the story.” I mean, train your brain to see the good in bad stories/failures so you can grow from them, rather than feel destroyed.)
5. Reflect and Adjust
Once you’ve felt your emotions, managed your thought patterns, talked to someone, and changed your perspective, it’s time to reflect on your failure.
It’s important to do this after processing all the emotions, so you can look at your failure with fresh eyes and a clear mind.
Some questions to ask yourself after a failure:
- What can I learn from this?
- Can I do anything differently next time?
- What skills do I need to learn or strengthen?
- Where did I struggle specifically?
- Is there someone I can learn from?
- What’s my next step to get better and come back from this?
Write down your answers if it helps, or just go over them mentally.
The key to a successful failure is to learn from it and adapt. Otherwise, it’s just a failure.
6. Let that Ish Go
Yup, it’s time to let it go. You’ve done all you can with it. Dwelling on it and getting down about it is counterproductive.
Take some time to deep breathe. Meditate. Do some yoga. Journal.
Focus your mind on moving forward. While you’ve been trying to figure out how to overcome failure, you’ve seen it’s a process. And it probably won’t happen overnight. But it’s going to save you bitterness, future frustration, and help you fight your self doubt.
How Your Failure is Going to Make Your Life Awesome
Congratulations! You did it! You were human, you failed, learned, overcame, and you’re now going to forward with confidence.
To recap, here’s how to overcome failure:
- Embrace your emotions. Cry it out.
- Stop any self destructive thought patterns before they begin.
- Talk to someone you trust.
- Change your perspective from “I suck” to “I’m human, I make mistakes, and now I know so much more than I did before.”
- Let it go, bebe.
The process of overcoming failure is tough, and can feel much longer than a 6-step process.
But your failure can also help add to the awesomeness and fullness of your life.
Here are the top 3 ways failure and overcoming it is going to bless your pants off:
- You learned something. Whatever you screwed up on, you learned how not to do it again. And I’ll bet those learned lessons will be able to be applied at many other stages in your life.
- You got the opportunity to unconditionally love yourself. Instead of only loving yourself when you do well, do something right, look perfect, receive others’ approval, etc. You got the chance to show yourself love when you failed. Learning to love yourself unconditionally is so, so important. Because guess what? This won’t be the last time you fail. It probably won’t even be the biggest time you failed. And knowing how to love yourself conditionally is going to be a skill you’ll need as you navigate through the rest of life’s trials.
- You got to receive grace and love from others. This is a big one. When you fail, it’s easy to be fearful of other people’s responses. But if someone extends grace to you, or an encouraging word, accept it and be grateful for it! This is an opportunity to see that people do not like you or love you because you are perfect 24/7. They love you because of who YOU are as a person. Take comfort in knowing that. By failing, you get to see who truly cares about you, and that it was never about you trying to be as perfect as you could.
That’s all for today, lovelies. I hope you enjoyed my post on How to Overcome Failure & Regain Your Self Confidence. If this post spoke to you or encouraged you at all, please leave a comment! I’d love to hear back from you : )
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Til next time, you hot tamales,
Love, hugs, and good vibes,
