Failure is the foundation for success, and these tips will help you turn your mindset around - don't get stuck in the negative moment.

If you haven’t failed, you are doing something wrong. Failure is the foundation for success. These tips can help you when dealing with failure.


1. Consider Failure as Tuition

If you are new to something, how can you expect it to work on the first try? You either need to learn more about what you are doing or alter your process by using the knowledge you obtained from your failures.

You should consider these failures, as well as what you learn, as part of your tuition for your business.

2. Believe in What You Are Doing

Imagine if Thomas Edison didn’t believe that the lightbulb was possible. He probably wouldn’t have tried 10,000 times to create it.

If someone else would have eventually come up with the invention, it likely would have happened much later in history. He was successful largely because he believed that his inventions were possible.

If you don’t believe in what you are doing, it’s going to be difficult to succeed. What will motivate you to keep driving towards your goal, if that goal is fuzzy to begin with?

3. Put Aside a Lack of Belief from Others

Whatever you try, you are going to get people who are against what you are trying to do. It could be family members or friends. Or it could simply be negative people who you engage in casual conversation with.

The difference between you and all of them is you know what you are trying to accomplish.

Keep reinforcing your belief that it is possible even if they don’t share that with you. Don't let go of your dream because you're the one with the vision.

4. Give Yourself Permission to Fail

When you set yourself up knowing that it’s okay to fail, it makes the process easier.

When it happens, because you planned for it, you have the mental capacity to continue. This gives you the ammunition to push forward and continue what you were doing.

5. Learn from Your Failures

If you don’t learn any lessons from your failures then you’re doomed to repeat them.

Analyze exactly what went wrong and record it. Make sure you refer to your log of failures so you will recognize them if they happen again, and you can avoid taking the exact same steps that led to the previous failure.

6. Offer to Help Others

When you fail at something, and you learn of someone else who failed in a similar way, reach out to them, and offer support.

If you are both at the same stage of failure, then you can bounce tips off each other. If you have already failed at something and determined what went wrong and what steps you took to recover, offer those tips to someone who has not figured it out.

7. Stop Dwelling on Failures

Although you should welcome failure, people often use them to produce excuses. Don’t do that. If you feel like you are dwelling on your failures, keep in mind that there is nothing you can do about them anyway, other than using them to improve for the future.

As long as you keep your beliefs and your push to succeed, your failures will never stop you.


The affirmations below are specifically designed to help you deal with failure and realize that it doesn't have to be your "normal state of being."

Don't beat yourself up for the failures you've experienced, learn from them, and then let them go. Dwelling on failure only keeps it at the forefront of your mind and makes it harder to move on and take the next right step.

Don't allow past failures (or current ones) to paralyze you and stop you from taking positive action. 

Say the affirmations aloud, and notice which ones feel easy for you and which ones create resistance. Add one of the easy affirmations and one of the challenging ones to your affirmation practice and repeat them several times a day for at least 30 days to give yourself the grace of time to feel the difference.

None of us became who we are overnight, and it's going to take time to change the aspects of our personalities, our emotions, and our spirits that we want to change. You deserve the investment of time and effort that an affirmation practice requires.

Get started right away and track your efforts and your progress in your journal.

brown wooden letter letter letter blocks

Affirmations to Help You Deal with Failure

My past has made me a stronger person. I can face anything.

I prevent negativity from taking root in my mind.

My experience is not unique, but my response will be.

The only approval I require is my own.

I do not underestimate myself; I am capable of greatness.

My biggest struggles serve as my biggest lessons.

I don’t have control over my past, but I have control over my choices.

I am fierce. I am bold. I am courageous.

I will delete anything from my life that does not serve me.

About the Author Dianne Daniels

Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and currently residing in Norwich, Connecticut, Dianne M. Daniels' mission is to empower women 50+ to Amplify their Self-Confidence, Deepen their Self-Knowledge, Inspire Creativity, and Glide into the next phase of their lives with the Power of Journaling, Affirmations, and Assessments.

You can learn how to use these time-tested proven practices to create and manifest the life you want (and deserve) to live.

Dianne is an ordained Unitarian Universalist Minister and holds a Master of Divinity degree from Starr King School for the Ministry. She's an avid reader, a lover of old houses (she renovated an 1850s vintage Greek Revival home with her family) and has been journaling since the age of 9.

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