The basic premise of economics is that we have unlimited desires but limited resources. That means we will experience the pain of failure, disappointment, or rejection sooner or later if we haven’t already done so.
How do you deal with the pain of failure, disappointment, or rejection when you experience it?
- Do you deny it and act as if it never happened?
- Do you give up, withdraw, and never try again?
- Do you escape it by distracting yourself with something else?
When you experience failure, disappointment, or rejection, you have another option to turn this challenge into an opportunity. That option is to face it, accept it, and embrace it.
Sink into the Pain of Failure
The first step is to accept that you failed. Accept the defeat. Denial only makes things worse. Feel the pain of the defeat fully. Sink into it. Go toward the eye of the emotional storm instead of trying to escape it by distracting yourself with something else.
What happens when you allow yourself to feel the pain of failure fully? You’ll experience that it diminishes over time and eventually disappears.
There’s a caveat though. Embracing your pain doesn’t mean beating yourself up. The difference is simple. Focus on the emotions and not on the thoughts. This is the essence of the letting go method.
Don’t reinforce your feelings of pain by expressing them or dwelling in thoughts triggered by those emotions.
The Difference between Thoughts and Emotions
You can distinguish between emotions and thoughts with a simple heuristic. Focus your attention on your body to feel your emotions. Your thoughts reside in your head, and they are expressed with language.
If you feel a knot in your stomach, that’s your emotions. Stay with it and breathe into it without thinking. If you catch yourself thinking thoughts like “I’m useless. I failed again.” Let them go. Don’t pay any more attention or invest any more mental energy into them.
When you stay with the pain of failure, disappointment, and rejection long enough, something magical happens. That pain and associated fears subside and eventually disappear.
Lose Your Fear of Failure, Disappointment, and Rejection
When you lose your fear of failure, disappointment, and rejection, you approach life and other people with a lighter, playful, non-attached attitude. When you come from that place, life and other people respond to you more positively.
Even your relationship with yourself becomes more positive, which is the most important relationship that you have anyway.
You start taking calculated risks, making more offers, and getting things done effortlessly because you aren’t attached to the results anymore. As a result, you receive more yesses and accomplish more.
By going through the pain of failure, disappointment, and rejection, you come out the other side as a successful, happy, playful person.
Summary
We all have or will experience the pain of failure, disappointment, or rejection because we have unlimited desires and there are limited resources.
When you experience a defeat, you can turn that experience into an opportunity by embracing the pain it causes thoroughly.
Once you do that and process the pain of failure entirely, you become immune to it. When you reach that immunity, you lose your fear of failure, disappointment, and rejection.
You adopt an attitude of non-attachment. Other people resonate with you better and respond to your requests more positively.
Your relationship with life gets much better, and you adopt a playful attitude, which makes you happier and more successful.
Burak BilginSoftware developer with a Ph.D. and 15 years of experience. I write daily on personal development and life lessons. Sign up to my email newsletter to receive a weekly overview of my latest content on personal development and life lessons.