FOR ANYONE FEELING LIKE A FAILURE

 For Anyone Feeling Like a Failure

I care about what people think about me.

I care about how other people see me.

I don’t want to be humiliated.

I am terrified by rejection

I still want to look impressive and cool sometimes.

I don’t want to disappoint people.

I am also the one who cannot stop thinking about how people judge me by my doing

Part of me saying, I want to control how people see me.

But I know it is impossible.

We struggle under the weight of criticism.

 

I read lots of books about how to get prepared mentally against those judgements.

I got a foundation to control my mind now.

But that is not totally true.

I am still struggling with it.

 

I think, we are somewhat like this.

The extent varies depending on a person.

The possible impacts of those judgements are beyond our imagination.

 

Those judgements can be knives to hurt people.

 

One of the reasons why we care so much about other people’s judgements is that

we are likely to be stuck in a binary standard that we created.

 

SIMPLIFIED WORLD

Even Though Our Life is Very Differentiated.

 

Win or lose

Right or wrong

Good or bad

Success or failure

 

We see this in anywhere such as sports, election, any type of games.

 

This binary standard makes us look for greatness or perfection on one hand.

 

We strive for success.

 

On the other hand, it creates discouragement.

When we cannot make it, then it is going to be a failure.

When you cannot achieve something, you feel discouraged.

And we are subject to criticism.

 

However, the thing is not that simple.

 

We always are in between.

Our status is not that simply defined by a binary standard.

 

Life is just one long game and journey.

 

 

 

All these psychological games in our minds are likely to lead to “TRYING”

because we think we are not enough. 

Then we are trying.

It is good on one side.

However, we can be desperate and drained.

 

We try and struggle.

We try to try.

 

In fact, that’s how I am very often.

Trying makes me struggle and that is unkind to myself, to be honest.

 

Trying is against our nature

based on the Taoism concept

“Win Without Trying”.

 

 

There is an anecdote that

you are growing potatoes

and you find that they don’t grow quickly,

and you water them a lot and it results in such a disaster.

All you had to do was just to wait in fact.

 

Sometimes we need to wait to see ourselves grow.

 

I tried lots of things and so many times and it happens that in most cases, my efforts have never been successful in romance, work, my projects etc. 

 

And I wonder why, I made lots of efforts and why things cannot be done as I wanted.

 

 

What I found was that

Things grow organically.

 

Trying is like you walk to tiptoe, but you cannot do that all day.

That drains you.

 

Trying makes me not honest how I am.

That deprives me off an organic power within myself, I believe.

 

One of the best solutions to this is

to accept how I am and who I am.

 

A long time ago, I was travelling around Spain.

At that time, I was in Salamanca.

I found a graffiti on the wall by chance saying

 

“Every Saint Has a Past and Every Sinner Has a Future”.

This message was running around my brain for a while.

This struck me and I was thinking, what this really means.

It sounds profound. I cannot get rid of that in my brain.

Later, I found that this is a quote from Oscar Wild, and it is originally a Christian quote.

 

One of my favorite lines.

 

 

Based on my research, there are many arguments and interpretations.

Here, I am not going to talk about what a right interpretation is.

I am only going to talk about my interpretations, how I understand this.

 

I think we all fail or make mistakes in life.

But at the same time, they are necessary evil to get better.

 

We see someone at one point and then we are likely to think that he is smart or he is good at it etc.

 

But for sure, this person has a past to get there.

And we have absolutely no idea about his past.

 

 

In my case, accepting a fact that “I am not that smart” will take me to next stage.

 

Shake Spear once said,

“The fool doth(does) think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool”.

 

I would say that, we all once have to be a fool to get better.

More correctly, we all once have to look like a fool to get better.

 

I know that this is very difficult.

We all have our prides in what we do or in ourselves.

 

But even a famous movie star,

 

Matthew McConaughey from the movie Wall Street, said in this speech.

 

“Always Play Like an Underdog”

 

But you PLAY LIKE an underdog. You are not an underdog, and you are just playing!

 

Most people may think that thinking “I am not that smart or good” is considered a negative thought.

 

But I realized accepting a reality is a first step to get better.

And this creates an opportunity for us to learn more.

 

But I will translate this in a little bit differentiated way

because I believe

we need to live with a big smile and a positive mind set!

 

That’s fun!

 

We can positively think that

 

We are not smart or good RIGHT NOW

but we think that is ok because we know that WE CAN GET BETTER IN THE FUTURE.

 

Sounds better, right?

 

 

We all know that but we can’t accept our insufficient parts easily.

 

We are all afraid of being rejected and being labeled as not good enough.

 

But it is all up to how you see that.

 

It is whether you can laugh at yourself within a fact that you are not that good.

 

In my opinion, seen in the long run, it is worse to live without being honest who I am and living while lying to myself and living with who I am not.

 

Otherwise, we never get better without accepting a reality.

But I say, accept a reality in a positive way.

 

You can fake one time but it is not sustainable.

 

And it is not a good thing to live without facing a reality that you might possibly overcome.

 

 

There is another anecdote about a buggy pants in African American culture to give us a little bit of clue to this.

 

 

 

This is about how our perception can change quickly.

It is all how you see things.

 

It is hard to change what people think about you or how you are or your surroundings

but it is easy to change how you see things.

 

Many African Americans cannot afford to buy a new pair of pants to perfectly fit them so that their bigger brother hand over one of those old pants to those youngers. 

 

For sure, those pants do not fit them because, imagine, you get them at the age of 10 and your bigger brothers may be around 15 years old. 

 

That’s a buggy pants.

 

 

A buggy pants is very loose, second hand, old and dirty representing poverty.

It is big not for the fashion or style but because they cannot buy a pair of pants to fit them. But they interpreted it as cool and became fashion at some point. 

 

It is up to how you present and see it.

 

It is not how you are but how you see it and interpret it.

 

 

In the context of a language-learning,

we face the same problems.

 

Many people fear being judged when they speak a foreign language in front of people.

 

People don’t want to look bad.

 

Then they try to look better.

It is a negative resistance against how you are.

They struggle and that makes the situation worse.

 

So one of the solutions is to accept how you are and change your perspective.

 

You don’t have to try because I know one day you will overcome it, not right now, but in the future.

 

You can look like a fool.

That’s ok.

You know you get better.

If you look like a fool to anyone,

You are in the process of getting better

 

 

You can practice speaking consistently on a daily basis.

That is more important than speak well in front of people or impress people.

You can only replicate what you practice in the routine.

If you think you cannot, you can leave it at the moment because you know you get better.

 

I can give you the most powerful word that I discovered in my life.

It is a recommendation from Dr. Keith Bell, ex-American National Swimming Coach.

 

That is “So what?”

 

We can be a fool as far as we can go to say “So what?” to whatever happens to you.

 

I failed in the exam so what?

I made a mistake, so what?

Someone ditched me, so what?

Someone hates me, so what?

Someone criticizes me a lot, so what?

 

You know you get better.

You need to have courage to be disliked.

It is like taking a cold shower in the morning.

It can be gone very quickly.

 

In life, lots of things can be recovered.

There are more people who struggle and live worse than you.

I have many stories about this.

 

We may hurt someone, but we can make him or her double-joyous later.

Lots of things can be recovered.

 

It is all up to you.

 

Key Takeaways

 

• Don’t get trapped in a binary standard
• Don’t try to try
• Win without trying
• Accept a reality
• Positively think that I am not good right now but I can get better
• Change your perspective to translate the situation well
• Have courage to be disliked
• Say SO WHAT? when you fail
• You know you get better
• Take a cold shower sometimes (I highly recommend this)
• Things can be recovered and return it double
• See yourself grow naturally

 

 

What do you think about this article?

Why do we care so much about what people think about us?

How do we overcome this?

If you know any good solutions, share them with me!

 

 

Thanks for reading,

Hilano Aquihisa