If you’ve ever experienced painful heartbreak or received a rejection letter after applying for your favorite job, you’ll be familiar with the negative feelings of failure. Although failure is inevitable and sometimes necessary, it still hurts. Some setbacks are so significant that they make you feel like your whole world is crumbling.
We all experience failure and its emotions. Even someone who has built up their resilience still experiences pain, anger, and sadness after a breakup or job loss.
Your failures don’t even have to be real before you experience feelings of failure. You can be successful but still feel like a failure — like you don't belong among your peers. This negative perception of success makes you believe your achievements are undeserved and that it is only a matter of time before your luck runs out and people see you as the failure you think you are.
Since it is more common to attribute our successes to our efforts and blame failures on factors beyond our control, you might wonder why you feel like a failure when it’s easier to blame external factors.
A small mistake causes you to engage in relentless self-criticism until you start believing you’re a failure.
Usually, it’s not about the failure itself. Deeper issues make people feel like failures when they are not. You could be dealing with childhood trauma, relationship breakup, inferiority complex, low self-esteem, depression, etc.
Addressing the symptoms of your failure without identifying the root causes will only mask the problems. So, before we can talk about things you can do to feel better about yourself, we must first address why you’re feeling like a failure.
This article identifies common reasons for feeling like a failure and then discusses things you can do to overcome that feeling in the short term. Finally, we offer 13 strategies to help you overcome feelings of failure for the long haul.
If you are currently experiencing signs of depression, especially if this is accompanied by thoughts of harming yourself, it's time to seek professional help. If you don't have someone to talk to, the Crisis Lifeline is there to help. Simply text or call 988 (or chat free on the website). Outside the US? International Mental Health Helplines are available.
9 Reasons You May Feel Like a Failure: What Failure Means to You
Although they might seem similar, there is a huge difference between thinking you have failed at something and thinking you’re a failure. While the former is normal, inevitable, and usually necessary for success if you react appropriately, the latter is a destructive mode of thinking that can quickly turn into a core belief.
The distinction between failing at something and feeling like a failure is crucial for maintaining a positive mindset. Failing at a task is a specific event or outcome that everyone inevitably encounters at some point. In a healthy response to this, one acknowledges the failure, reflects on what went wrong, and uses it as an opportunity for growth. This mindset understands that failing is an integral part of the learning process.
Learning from our failures and mistakes is a stepping stone toward success, providing valuable lessons that refine our approach, bolster our resilience, and build our competence. Individuals who embrace this view recognize their worth beyond any isolated setback. They focus on the next steps and maintain a sense of optimism, knowing that persistence and adaptability will lead them closer to their goals.
On the other hand, feeling like a failure is an unhealthy mindset that internalizes setbacks as an indicator of one's intrinsic value. Instead of seeing a failure as a temporary event or a learning opportunity, individuals with this mindset mistakenly believe it reflects their inherent inadequacy. This pervasive, negative self-belief can spiral into a destructive cycle of self-doubt, discouragement, and hopelessness — ultimately leading to depression (or vice versa, where the depression comes first). These feelings can also lead to misperceptions of the actions of others, seeing them as being mean toward you when they aren't.
The key difference lies in how one interprets and internalizes setbacks. A positive mindset seeks solutions, while a negative one magnifies the setback into a perceived personal flaw. By understanding this distinction, individuals can shift their focus towards growth and resilience and cultivate a mindset that recognizes failure as a natural part of the journey rather than a reflection of their worth.
If you consistently ask yourself, "Why do I feel like a failure," it is important to know that your negative perception of failure didn’t come out of thin air. There are always underlying causes for these feelings, and identifying them is the first step in overcoming your perceived failure.
Here are nine reasons you could be feeling like a failure.
1. You Have Low Self-Esteem
Low self-esteem causes you to fixate on your failures and ignore your achievements. You feel inferior to others, are overly self-critical, have self-doubt, and find it hard to believe compliments from others. Low self-esteem leads to a lack of self-belief and confidence in taking risks. Your feelings of failure will persist until you solve your self-esteem issues.
Furthermore, low self-esteem is often linked to various negative traits. When you struggle with low self-esteem, you may become more prone to traits like negativity, self-centeredness, and distrustfulness. These traits can further damage your relationships and hinder personal growth. Addressing self-esteem issues is crucial for overcoming these negative traits and fostering a more positive self-image, which can significantly improve your overall well-being.
2. You Have Unresolved Childhood Issues
Time may heal most wounds, but some traumas remain with you and continue to influence your mindset if left untreated. Many people feel like failed adults due to unresolved childhood issues caused by their family, peer group, or society. We want our parents to be loving and nurturing, but it isn't always so (or they just didn't show us love the way we needed it).
Can you relate to any of these?
- Your parents or caregivers were too critical and had high expectations of you.
- You had busy or uninterested parents, so you’re trying too hard to impress them.
- Your parents are high achievers, and you’re trying to live up to their lofty potential.
- You were unfavorably compared to your more successful siblings.
- Your parents did everything for you, so you’re finding it hard to get by alone.
- Your parents always praised you to celebrate your successes (no matter how little, and potentially to an extreme). As a result, the absence of such praise from your boss, colleagues, or partner makes you feel like a failure.
- Your parents had low self-esteem, which they passed on to you.
- Your society or culture stigmatized failure.
3. You’re Dealing With Rejection
Are you going through a recent breakup? Did your job application meet a dead end? Dealing with rejection in your personal and professional lives is always tough, especially after you put in a lot of work. Rejection affects your general well-being and may explain why you feel like a failure in everything. Moving forward from a failed relationship or career is harder for people who are already dealing with self-esteem or self-worth issues.
4. You Have Imposter Syndrome
Do you feel like a failure even though you can’t mention one significant thing you’ve failed at? You may have what mental health professionals call Imposter Syndrome. You feel you do not deserve the success you have achieved and put it all down to luck. You believe your luck will soon run out, and people will realize you’re a failure. Imposter syndrome usually causes successful people to feel like failures.
5. You’re Comparing Yourself to Others Too Much
You may feel inferior if you compare yourself to others, especially on social media. Most people post the best parts of their relationships, careers, and lives on social media to make themselves look better than they are. Since you’re aware of your limitations and unaware of theirs, comparison only puts you at a disadvantage. If you are already suffering from poor confidence, it's harder to remember that not everything people portray on the internet is reality.
6. Your Relationship or Workplace is a Poor Fit
Are you struggling to advance in your career because it’s not the right fit for your personality? Do you and your partner struggle to express and receive love how you both want? Is your manager or work environment too toxic? The chances of failure are always high when you build a relationship or career without prioritizing your personality, values, and needs.
7. You’re a Perfectionist
Perfectionists tend to be self-critical when things don’t go how they want. You set lofty goals, make unrealistic demands, and expect no mistakes. It might explain why a few setbacks feel like the end of the world to you. It's okay to have high standards, but when perfectionism causes you to beat yourself up any time you fail or make a mistake, that's an issue.
8. You’ve Built Up Unrealistic Expectations for Yourself
Your journey toward personal development and self-discovery must involve understanding yourself and your limits. When you fail to understand your strengths and vulnerabilities, you become prone to setting unrealistic expectations for yourself just because someone else has achieved the same. Everyone makes mistakes; it's part of life!
9. You’re Dealing with Mental Health Issues
Mental health issues like depression and anxiety breed negative thoughts, causing you to feel like a failure. You may notice that apart from feeling like a failure, you usually feel sad, hopeless, worn-out, restless, worthless, etc. Substance abuse, especially when it has turned into addiction, can also lead to feeling like you are a disappointment and failure to your loved ones and yourself.
5 Practical Tips to Feel Less Like a Failure in the Moment
Overcoming the constant feelings of failure is a journey that requires time and patience. Some people opt for a quick fix by resorting to unhealthy coping mechanisms like drugs, alcohol, binge-eating junk food, substance abuse, isolation, etc., just to avoid the emotions of failure.
While those things give you the initial high to numb the immediate pain, it is almost always immediately followed by a sudden crash that leaves you much worse than you were feeling.
So, we’ve devised a way to kill two birds with one stone. Here are five healthy, practical tips that can provide immediate relief and help you regain confidence and a positive mindset to work toward a more permanent solution.
1. Join a Support Group
Discussing your feelings with people who understand and can offer practical advice to help you recover is necessary for immediate relief. When group members share stories of failure, it helps you gain perspective and avoid blowing your issues out of proportion since others are going through similar or worse problems.
2. Practice Journaling
We sometimes exaggerate our problems and underrate our successes because we keep them in our heads. Journaling brings mental clarity, helps you control your emotions, and improves your general well-being.
3. Help Others
Going out of your way to show kindness to others is incredibly therapeutic. The aim is to make others happy by easing their burden, but there is always a ripple effect that significantly improves the helper’s happiness and well-being. According to a study, prosocial behaviors reduce stress and loneliness and increase happiness and shared resilience.
4. Find a Healthy Distraction; Try Something New
There is no better time to try something different than when stuck in a rut. You need a healthy distraction to free your mind from negativity and fear of failure. You can engage in your favorite hobbies (or find a new one) that you find relaxing and exciting. Some suggestions include gardening, cycling, swimming, hiking, visiting the gym, reading a book, etc.
5. Set and Achieve a Small Goal
At this point, you desperately need any win you can get. Who says your goals must be lofty before they can have a positive effect? Set a small, easily achievable goal. When you achieve it, celebrate it. It brings an immediate feel-good effect that can help you get used to winning and eliminate negativity within you.
13 Healthy Strategies to Stop Feeling Like a Failure
If you dedicate a substantial amount of time and effort toward a goal, like building a relationship or securing a job, falling short of your goal can cause significant pain, stress, sadness, and anger. Even though successful people reiterate the necessity and inevitability of failure in their journey to success, failure feels awful.
You’ve probably heard the story of Thomas Edison one too many times about how he failed 10,000 times before delivering the groundbreaking light bulb invention. While the story offers hope, it doesn’t help you stop feeling like a failure.
Here are 13 things you can do to stop feeling like a failure.
1. Scrutinize Your Negative Thoughts
Before you give in to the negative thoughts that come with failure, ask yourself whether your failure is real or imagined. When you subject your thoughts to proper scrutiny, you may realize that you have not failed but overreacted to a simple setback.
2. Change How You Deal with Failure
Most people struggle with feelings of failure, choosing to run away from their emotions. How you deal with failure determines whether you can use it as a stepping stone to reach your goals. Accept your role in causing the failure, feel the emotions without dwelling, treat failure as a learning opportunity, and avoid indulging in unhealthy coping mechanisms to drown your sorrow.
3. Be Grateful for Your Strengths, Achievements, and Positive Traits
Remind yourself of your strengths, achievements, and positive traits to help you stop feeling like a failure. List your accomplishments, no matter how small, and express gratitude for each one to help foster positivity. Then, ask yourself if someone with such a long list of achievements and strengths should ever be considered a failure.
4. Set Clear Goals to Enhance Your Recovery
Failure breeds a lack of direction. Set clear goals to provide something to work toward and turn your failure into success. Ensure your goals are realistic and break them down into actionable steps.
5. Prioritize Your Strengths and Personality in Your Personal and Professional Life
When making key decisions about your career path and personal relationships, you must consider your strengths and personality traits. For example, if you’re an introvert, you shouldn’t choose a job that requires extroverted skills. Do not set yourself up for failure by doing things that expose your weaknesses.
6. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
One of the greatest injustices you can do to yourself is to compare yourself to others. Try self-comparison and self-reflection instead to determine how much you’ve improved over the years. Look at where you are currently and compare it to where you were a few years ago. Have you learned new skills? What valuable experience have you gained? You will likely realize you’re better off than you used to be.
7. Have Some Self-Compassion
Being your own harshest critic tends to bring more harm than good if you don’t balance it with self-compassion. Setting high standards is good, but you must accept that mistakes are inevitable. When they occur, don’t tear yourself down. Be kind to yourself and show self-forgiveness. View setbacks as temporary and treat failure as a learning opportunity.
8. Consider a Change in Your Personal or Professional Life
When you’ve tried everything, without success, to make something work, the smart option is to move on to something else. Persistence is a positive trait, but knowing when to change course is important. Are you fed up with your current career and seeking a career change? It’s never too late to find a job you love. Is your relationship becoming too toxic? There are no prizes for sticking around in unhealthy relationships.
9. Do The Things You’re Passionate About
When dealing with failure and the negative emotions accompanying it, you’re desperate for comfort, happiness, purpose, and a sense of direction. Engaging in your favorite activities relaxes you and brings you joy. Let your next goal be something you’re passionate about. It’s easier to persevere and remain resilient when encountering setbacks while doing what you enjoy.
10. Practice Self-Care
Don’t underrate how effective simple self-care habits can be when you’re going through emotional distress or feeling like a failure. Those who make self-care an essential part of their daily routine constantly feel good about themselves, have more positive emotions, are less prone to self-doubt, and deal with setbacks in a healthy way.
The following self-care habits can improve your physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental well-being.
11. Exercise Patience as You Plan Toward Success
Patience is crucial when achieving a goal or dealing with a setback. Take time to re-strategize and understand what went wrong before jumping on to the next goal. Are you currently reeling from a heartbreak? Avoid rushing into a rebound relationship. Taking breaks throughout the day is also a good mental health strategy.
12. Surround Yourself with Positive People
Do not surround yourself with people who criticize your every mistake and influence you with their negative, pessimistic attitude. Build relationships with positive, optimistic people who motivate you, provide emotional support, and elevate your worries during difficult times.
13. Seek Professional Help from a Licensed Therapist
Are you currently experiencing emotional distress or depression that you can’t deal with on your own? Seeking professional help from a licensed therapist can help you overcome feelings of failure if you find them too overwhelming. You may consider online therapy if you can’t find a reliable therapist in your location.
If you find yourself engaging in self-sabotage or other maladaptive behaviors that require a special form of talk therapy, you may try Schema Therapy. This therapy is effective for treating those whose emotional needs weren’t met as children.
Make Your Self-Fulfilling Prophecy a Positive One!
Have you ever started a day believing it would be awful, and then it turned out to be true? It’s not because you’re psychic—although we admit that would be pretty cool. Psychologists call it a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When you expect or believe something will go wrong, you begin to act consciously or unconsciously in ways that turn your expectations into reality. Your beliefs influence your expectations, which in turn influence your behavior. Your behavior influences the outcome, which reinforces your belief. It’s a cycle of negativity on a slippery slope.
Believing you’re a failure will allow you to act in ways that significantly increase your chances of failure. You become pessimistic about your chances of succeeding, focus on the negatives, ignore the positives, and believe you’re powerless to stop the impending failure.
Fortunately, self-fulfilling prophecies can be positive.
We’ve seen their effects in medicine through the Placebo Effect, where patients in a clinical trial experienced improvement in their condition based on the belief that the treatment would work. So, you only need to start thinking positively to prevent your belief about failure from becoming a reality.
Practice mindfulness to recognize and detach yourself from the negative core beliefs and thought patterns driving your actions. Use positive affirmations to replace your negative thoughts with positive ones.
Always remember that you may have failed many times, but you are not a failure!
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