Dr. Pradeep Shyam Ranjan
Counselling Psychologist
Ph. D. (Psychology), PGDCP, PGDMH
The failed student committed suicide, the unemployed youth swung on the fan, or rejected lover threw acid on the girlfriend. We keep reading or listening about such incidents on daily basis, through print or electronic media. Such abnormal or undesirable behavior is not shown by only ordinary people but also by top notch of society. These incidents show that we are highly sensitive to the failure and don’t find the ways to deal the stress arising from it. The reasons for this hyper-sensitivity are many, but the most important is – attitude towards failure which develops from upbringing, education and society.
Since childhood, whether it is home, or school, we are fed with the knowledge of being successful. Parent, teachers, well-wishers, TV serials, reality shows, social media, and management books all have been teaching about ‘how to achieve success in life’. They show dreams, guide and glorify the happiness and glamour achieved by success. Our current education system also encourages ‘results’ instead of ‘efforts’. Schools offers ranks, medals, prizes, or awards to the students who scores good in academics or win a competition. As a consequence, children, whether it is studies or sports, are worried about achievement, rank, position, grade or marks. Children are stressed about the results rather than actual joy of learning.
After having all the craving for success, when we face failure all of sudden we don’t know how to face it? How to react? How to embrace a defeat or how to bounce back? We are not taught this at all. We are left only confused, frustrated, and depressed. All of sudden our whole the existence becomes ‘failure’.
How people react towards failure? Albert Ellis, a well-known American Psychologist has defined the relationship between Incident, Belief and Consequences in ABC Model.
A (Activating event/Antecedent)-B (Belief)-C (Consequences)
For example, ‘failure in exam’ is an Activating Event (A). Now, how much it will affect us will depend on our belief system about the event. If we consider it a shameful incident, a blot on reputation, determinant of future growth, then, as a result, we will have stress. If we consider it just a bad incident and take a lesion from it, then it would not be as stressful. Therefore, an event would be stressful or not is determined by the thoughts associated with it. Actually what troubles is not momentary success or failure rather the thoughts and tags attached with failure. Feeling of failure is deeper than failure itself.
Carol S. Dweck, Psychologist and author of ‘Mindset’ is of the view that reaction toward failures is based on mindset. In her book she explained that the person with fixed mindset takes failure as permanent and thinks that he/she cannot do anything about his/her capability or condition. On the other hand, person with growth mindset used to focus on learning rather than success or failure. Failure can be a painful experience for such people also. But it does not define them. They take it as a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from”.
So, if we think that failure is a sign of weakness we need to redefine the failure, and rearrange our irrational thoughts. Failure is not an opposite part of success. It is not a symbol or certificate of capability. It is just a part of learning. On the ground of reality, it is not possible to succeed always. Accepting failure and taking it as a challenge is a sign of positive mind set. And, why should things be seen only in the aspect of victory and defeat. If we focus on the process instead of the outcome, we find that each incident gives us some experience. This experience and learning is more important for life rather than momentary success or failure.
We should also aware about the ‘law of change’. The law of change is a natural law and applies to each and everybody. It tells us that whatever the time is will definitely change. As a living being we face change throughout our life. Then why should be impatient for a momentary bad time are outcome. It has to be change, it will be changed.
We must take a look at our childhood also when we used to fall hundred times to stand upright. But it never affected our morale and enthusiasm. Perhaps our pattern of thinking was not fixed and falling was not connected with our reputation.
