Why do I feel like I am failing at life?

More than ever people feel as if they are failing in their lives.

We all live in what seems like an endless cycle of perfect images on social media, people with perfect lives, perfect bodies, relationships, homes and careers, for many it seems hard to reconcile their own lives with what they are exposed to and they feel like they have failed for not having this perceived perfect world.

Of course, it’s all smoke and mirrors, nobody has a perfect life, and those images that we see on social media aren’t real. Behind the filters, the staged sets and poses life for everyone have flaws and imperfections.

People have equal amounts of success and failure, so why do some people only ever look at the failures in their lives? What is it that makes some people feel that everything they do is worthless whilst others always just look at their successes?

How do I stop overthinking about failure?

Do you constantly think about failure? Can you never see the good outcomes in situations or in your achievements? Are you stuck in a rut when it comes to how you think about yourself? Do you constantly tell yourself that you are a failure?

These thoughts are destructive but it is possible to change them and introduce new, positive thoughts instead.

There are many things that you can do to eradicate the self-limiting beliefs you are carrying around.

We can all have times when we don’t live up to the expectations that we have of ourselves when we fall short or mess something up.

This is called being human. Nobody is perfect and we have to expect to get things wrong from time to time and to let ourselves down.

Having the right mindset or coping strategies in place when this happens can help to get through when we feel we have failed in some way.

How do you bounce back from feeling like a failure?

Feeling like a failure is not a great way to feel. It can make you want to give up, can severely dent your self-confidence and can demotivate you.

It can also have implications for levels of stress and for poor emotional and physical health.

If you do experience feeling like a failure you do need to know some ways that you can bounce back before it begins to take over your life and happiness.

Knowing that there are times when everyone fails can make it easier and following the advice of other people can be very beneficial in giving you tips on how to cope.

Following the tips below can help when you feel you have failed and are looking for ways to cope with the situation.

21 Easy Powerful Tips

1. Have clear, precise written goals

Clear, precise goals for what you are doing and where you are going in life are a great way to prevent failure or get you back on track if something happens to derail you. Writing them down step by step gives you a place to go back to if you have to begin again. Goals give you vision and direction. They can also highlight how far you have come….maybe by examining your goals you could see you haven’t failed as much as you thought.

2. Question your negative thoughts

Are the negative thoughts you are having about being a failure accurate?

If you were to examine your thoughts and attitude towards yourself would you see any validity in the way you are thinking or treating yourself?

Question your thoughts, put them on trial and see if they stand up to interrogation.

3. Don’t Compare yourself to other people

Never compare yourself with other people, it is never going to get you anywhere, and it will normally only end up making you feel negative about yourself. This is because we only ever compare ourselves to people who we perceive to be better than us in some way or another.

Be your own person and be proud of who you are. Look at the things you have accomplished in your own life and be proud of them. Remember, nobody is perfect constant comparisons with other people will only ever bring you down. It may be better staying off social media until you are in a better place mentally as this is where most comparisons occur.

4. Practice being kind to yourself

How kindly do you treat yourself? Do you talk down, reprimand and say awful things to yourself? Always treat yourself the way that you would other people. When you begin to treat yourself with love and compassion you will start to hold a different opinion, one which is more positive and caring.

5. Question what failure really means

Are you seeing yourself as a failure when in reality you have a skewed idea of what failure is? Question what failure really means to you. You could be judging yourself far too harshly because of your preconceived ideas of success and failure. Are you judging yourself based on somebody else’s ideas of failure? Failure isn’t a state of being, it is just something that happens in life and passes. We can all learn from failures so start to reassess what failure really means for you.

6. Develop a positive mental attitude

How you think about life on a daily basis will be reflected in your actions and how you feel about yourself.

Try to develop a positive mental attitude. Cutting out negative social media, news and anything else that affects how you feel about your current situation and the world you inhabit can have a huge impact on how you feel about yourself.

Look for the positives everywhere you are, they are all around. Practising gratitude can also help to develop a positive mental attitude.

7. Write down everything that's great about you

There will be many great things that you could be saying about yourself so start doing so.

Write down all of your strengths, achievements that you have made in your life so far, and all of the great things other people say and feel about you.

You will be surprised at how big your list will be once you begin. When you have written everything down read your list every day and each time you accomplish something else add it to your list.

8. View setbacks as simply bumps in the road to success

If you hit a setback take a different view of it and see it as simply a bump in the road. Don’t let it throw you off course. Life will constantly be littered with setbacks, it’s how you view them that matters. What seems like a setback one day, could turn out to be just what you were looking for in life.

9. Do the things in life you feel passionate about

Make sure that you fill your life with things you feel passionate about.

When you are passionate about something you are far less likely to surrender to negative feelings if things don’t always go to plan. Passion will drive you forward and keep you feeling far more optimistic about your achievements.

10. Use visualisation techniques to imagine positive outcomes

Visualisation is a great tool to use when you are feeling like a failure and need a boost of confidence. Imagine the outcome that you are hoping for in the most positive way and then visualise it in minute detail. Go into great detail about everything, using all of your senses. Once you have visualised something in this much detail your brain will start to believe that the outcome is true and you will be far more likely to succeed in your endeavours.

11. Adopt healthy eating habits

You are what you eat as the saying goes so if you want to be feeling and looking your best then you need to make sure you have a healthy eating plan to follow. Eating food rich in vitamins and minerals, fibre and whole grains will give you the best chance of living a healthy, fulling life. If you fill your diet with processed food, sugar, alcohol and fast food then you won’t be doing yourself any favours.

12. Don't use alcohol or drugs as a crutch

So something didn’t go to plan. Don’t turn to alcohol or drugs to make yourself feel better, it won’t, it will have the completely opposite result.

Too many people turn to stimulants to mask the feelings that they have but it only ever prolongs a bad situation and makes it worse.

Alcohol and drugs dull the senses and actually make you feel worse. The initial high is followed very quickly by a severe crash. Avoid putting yourself into this situation by finding different coping strategies such as exercise.

13. Make self-care an essential part of your life

How you see yourself really does determine your self-worth and how you feel about yourself. Make self-care an essential part of your life. Eat well, exercise, drink plenty of water, practice meditation, get plenty of sleep, spend time with people who make you feel good and spend time doing things that you love and that bring you joy. These are all ways of practising self-care and can have a very positive effect on how you feel about yourself and the outcomes you get in life.

14. Develop a plan to help you succeed

To avoid failure, develop a plan to succeed. Planning for an outcome gives you the best chance of achieving it.

Whilst you are planning, make a note of anything that could go wrong. How would you deal with this situation?

Are there any ways you could avoid it happening in the first place? A well-made plan will give you the best chance of success.

15. Learn to accept and understand your emotions

Become fully understanding of your emotions and also fully accepting of them. We are all different and will all have our own set of emotions and react to different situations in different ways. The more you understand yours, the more you will be able to cope when something crops up.

16. Practice self-discipline

Do you ever feel like a failure because you don’t achieve everything you set out to do? Are you a procrastinator? Do you constantly back out of doing things in your life because you prefer the easier options? Try being more disciplined with yourself. Push yourself further, don’t always take the easy options and step out of your comfort zone once in a while. By doing this, you will achieve far more and won’t view yourself as a failure.

17. Have a lot of patience with anything you're trying to do or achieve

Don’t see yourself as a failure if you don’t do something right the first time of trying.

Nearly all of the great inventions of our time will have come about after multiple attempts. Imagine if Edison had viewed himself as a failure the first time his attempt at creating a light bulb had failed.

You need to develop patience with what you are doing. Give yourself the time to have a few setbacks and failures, and plan them into what you are trying to achieve.

18. Use the power of positive affirmations

Positive affirmations are another powerful tool to help you to overcome feelings of failure. Make a list of all of the things that you are good at and read it out loud to yourself every day, until you start to believe it.

19. Look for ways to build your self-confidence

By building your self-confidence you will begin to view yourself in a far more positive way, thus eradicating feelings of failure. There are many ways that you can build your self-confidence such as;

• learning to say no to people

• develop positive relationships

• learn to be more assertive

• set yourself a challenge

• list what you are good at.

20. Gather around you extremely positive people

Make sure the people you surround yourself with are positive, optimistic people who only have your best interests at heart and who see the best of you. Your circle of friends need to be people who are going to support you and who bring the best out of you. Try to push anyone negative to one side. It may seem harsh but negative people will always try to bring you down to their level.

21. Find yourself an accountability partner or coach

When you have someone you are accountable to you are far more likely to be successful. This could
be either an accountability partner or a coach you are working with. These people will be there to support you and offer you encouragement and will prevent you from viewing yourself as a failure if something doesn’t go to plan.

Final Thoughts

You need to understand you aren’t a failure and by following the above tips you can stop feeling like you are. We are all going to have setbacks, things are always going to go wrong at times, this never means that we are failures.

Once you start to believe in yourself and in your abilities, things won’t look so dire, and you won’t be as quick to judge yourself.

If you are struggling to see yourself from a different perspective get in touch to see how coaching can help you realign your thoughts and move on from the way you are feeling about yourself.

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