How do you deal with failure?

[Drvladivostok]

The stereotypical INTP specimen seems to have an aversion to starting a new project by the mere fear of failing, our Ti with Ne makes us ruminate upon the hundreds of possibility our new endeavor could fail from a myriad of reasons, we're also quite perfectionist and would not except anything but hundred percent competence, it also doesn't help that we're very self critical.

My question is how do you deal when said fear becomes reality, after your journey you realize you have reached a point far below your expectations, and no, there are nothing you can do to fix it in the technical sense, the result of this endeavor will always be sub-par and will not reflect your ability no matter what you do, I'm asking for mental solution to deal with this.
My case: Third semester in University just ended, aced every subject except one which I failed and have to repeat next year, this will prevent me from getting a Cum Laude no matter how high my GPA gets, I'm really ambitious with my academic achievement so this is quite the disappointment. So how would you deal with a failure whit such magnitude (not necessary regarding this specific case)?

 

[Rook]

I've fucked up a whole lot in my life, won't get into specifics, but the mistakes I made were stupid, irrational, complacent, and done due to a nihilistic/naive/apathetic approach to existence.

All I can say is: Know what you want, appreciate what you have, and move on from failure. Shit happens, learn from it. If there are habits that you know prevent you from doing what you want to do or getting where you want to get or just plain prevent you from enjoying life, fight those habits tooth and nail, day by day.

If you don't enjoy the path you're on at all, or rarely, then change it. Radical change is no bad thing, and is definitely preferable than slogging along a path for twenty plus years chasing this or that impulse just to look back and think 'What a waste.'

 

[ZenRaiden]

I'm really ambitious with my academic achievement so this is quite the disappointment. So how would you deal with a failure whit such magnitude (not necessary regarding this specific case)?

We rarely use our full intellectual capacity.

I think that if you were really that ambitious you would not fail any class and I believe that you would probably ace all classes.

When you say that you are "really ambitious" you are really lying to yourself.
You are ambitious true, but not that ambitious.

Question is then why did you fail.....

following reasons could be true......
you did not care about the class....
you had things distracting you from paying enough attention to the class....

We rarely fail, because we have limitations its more common to fail, because we unwittingly or knowingly impose limitations on ourselves. thus we fail.

Maybe you should track your record and see the key reasons why you failed the class.
Maybe you would find the reasons you failed in anyway had to do with bad habits or bad notes, or just not paying attention or listening or not understanding etc.

Key question though is if failing some dumb class is really an issue.
Students often think that learning is important, probs, because educators and parents often say so..... however learning zero productive activity.
You are literally doing nothing productive when you are learning.
True that learning has to be done in order to be productive.
However learning is not a productive activity.

Learning is just expanding your potential that is all. Its when the ball drops that things start to matter.

 

[Hadoblado]

Take a step back and review what is actually important to you.

Setting your standard at cum laude seems monumentally entitled. Shit happens, life gets in the way. Recognition is a luxury afforded to be people who are both lucky and capable.

Also, does this actually affect your prospects? Why are you at uni in the first place?

There is no such thing as 100% competent. 100% of what?

 

[washti]

The title would look nice on your resume. Some people derive gamer pleasure from looking in retrospect at a neat succession of improvements. It's so just right.

Though you may mentally scratch it out and start again - this time focusing on let's say a stipend, grant for young researchers, internship, or any other visible representation of 'I win'. Reframing the achievement start point, or filing the gap if you have some other successes already.

Do you have a map of potential accomplishments? Generating a lot of alternative goals and streamlining them differently could ease a bit of mental discomfort. You would see that there are many ways how your competence can manifest over time. If not this way then that. Not door I will go by window or chimney.

If you tried that then I don't have much to add.

For the long-term impact, Hado provided a good idea about trying to look at your deeper motivations, and Rook has a good fighting spirit to share. I would give them cum Laude for attitude. Hoping they won't cringe from the entitlement. ;p
ZenRaiden tho is unnecessary cranky. Learning is great.

 

[ZenRaiden]

ZenRaiden tho is unnecessary cranky. Learning is great.

I just realized that and I am sorry @Drvladivostok

if you interpreted my message in bad way, so let me say do not take it seriously or as some criticism.

My real point was to be as objective as you can be about evaluating your performance.
Your school performance in form of grades is just a feedback for you. Its not your actual real performance, its just so you can tell if you are meeting the arbitrary standards of your education system.

Other than that you should think clearly about what you are learning and be able to validated your own learning. Its important, because if you can do that you will see your fail and success in more objective and meaningful way.
You do not need to externalize your performance onto grades.
Grades are besides the point.

SO yeah you can be the smartestestsest and bestestseteseste and person with great grades, but that alone does not maximize your learning.

 

[Siouxsie]

Re evaluate.
And try to give a purpose to what I do. Sometimes in the pursuing of perfection I can forget what truly motivated me in the begining, I think that one´s important.
How are you dealing with your academic disappointment?

 

[Puffy]

If I was striving for something that was unattainable then eventually I'd need to come to an acceptance of that. Chances are I'd still be a gifted person with my own strengths and it would just be a lesson in understanding what my limitations are.

To give an example, I was on a work contract recently where I was really going all out and was very satisfied with my work, it's the best I've done in this field. Then one day I started experiencing migraines and crippling fatigue whenever I tried to work. I had to take a month off to recover and today have had to resign the project as it's no longer possible for me to do it. The project has gone downhill towards a negative outcome as a result of my absence.

My mind really wants to push ahead to show my mettle. But this is in essence resistance to change that is being presented to me. Actually, when I look at this what I was striving for before was really unhealthy for me, even making me sick. In accepting this I'm able to start making lifestyle changes, make different choices about the projects I pursue, that will ultimately help me to be healthier and happier.

I don't know enough about your situation. But if you're a perfectionist then you've very likely set a bar that is too high for yourself, and as a result your too unkind to yourself when you don't meet it. It sounds like you've actually made an incredible academic achievement in acing all that you have. So, if I were you, I think I'd celebrate yourself and celebrate your accomplishment and not be setback by the subject you failed. Failures are just learning experiences and everyone experiences them, don't ever let that stop you from trying, living and learning.

 

[Drvladivostok]

When you say that you are "really ambitious" you are really lying to yourself.
You are ambitious true, but not that ambitious.

Question is then why did you fail.....

following reasons could be true......
you did not care about the class....
you had things distracting you from paying enough attention to the

Noted

 

[verve!ne]

I would re-focus on a new goal. So you can't make cum laude - meh. That could have been a pretty big ask anyway, depending on which school you were at and what your predicted grades were. Was this a goal you had from the very beginning?

What motivates you? Is it specifically being near the top of the class? Doing research and answering a question the absolute best you can? The most interesting work doesn't always get the best grades anyway, so it might be that you're quantifying your goals in the wrong way - especially if you didn't like the classes you failed or didn't find them useful. Figure out exactly what you want and rebuild the model of your life

It's a platitude but, especially if you plan on doing more academic stuff after graduating (unsure what stage you're at in your studies), this really could be an effective learning experience. Feeling absolutely rock-bottom can be quite cleansing, in a way. Find another way to prove those things you wanted to prove about yourself by coming top of the class, and work out what those things were in the first place; there will be other ways to prove it in the future. Maybe you'll decide you need to change your study habits, and maybe this failure will help condition you to work harder in the future.

P.S. Nothing wrong with being entitled in this instance, I don't think. Ambition shouldn't be demonised if it's not hurting anybody.

 

[sushi]

define it and learn to cope with it
if you leave it undefined, it only gets worse

i think the fear of failure is in part programmed by our parents and upbringing.

you have to define your fears and failures and make a list.

 

[MyHeadHurt]

Failure > re-evaluate my life decision > Get back to work > Failure >

or sometimes it actually leads to success

 

[Drvladivostok]

It should be noted that the reason I failed the class is absolutely preposterous, my uni had this 'absent quota' so you have to be present for at least 80% of my classes, now I abide by the stereotype of being lazy, even though I usually try my best and ace the mid and end term exam. So even though I could get an A in that course my tutor gave me a fucking 0 in my end term.

Now I know this is 100% my fault however it doesn't reflect my ability over the subject.

 

[Siouxsie]

It should be noted that the reason I failed the class is absolutely preposterous, my uni had this 'absent quota' so you have to be present for at least 80% of my classes, now I abide by the stereotype of being lazy, even though I usually try my best and ace the mid and end term exam. So even though I could get an A in that course my tutor gave me a fucking 0 in my end term.

Now I know this is 100% my fault however it doesn't reflect my ability over the subject.

If you´re gonna look on it that way, you should also acknowledge the fact that academic achievements don´t reflect your abilities. You can develop a career further than the academic world. Just decide who you are (your limitations, what you´re willing to risk, the lenghts you´re willing to go, your abilities and talents) and what you want (what makes you good, what makes you grow, it isn´t always what we SAY we want), you can´t have both ways, can´t have the cake and eat it too, etc.

Personally I see that academics , at least in my country, only define how mediocre and how good of a bootlicker you are. There are other organizations that adjoin with strictly academic ones, and they cooperate in an interesting way, I´m talking about psychoanalysis in my case.

But you have to know the afore mentioned first, that journey isn´t cheap either... Usually we tend to feel like we´ve failed, because an illusion has broke, when something breaks or changes you can´t go back to the previous stage, something is lost, so... why cry over spilt milk?... life will never be perfect XD better to start from there. Things break, we fail, its ok to lose.

 

[sushi]

people often associate failure with punishment, suffering and consequences
dissappointment

if you have harsh parents, they will often make a strong association between failure and punishment in your childhood, which result in failure avoidance and anxiety later in life.

Over personalifcation of your own failure when in fact it may due to factors not within your ability and effort might also be the result of bad parents.

 

[dr froyd]

that's one of the big problems with academia – it creates the illusion that reality can be reduced to a bunch of exam questions and that there exists something like perfection in results.

in the real world, a failure always leaves you with some knowledge that you couldn't have acquired otherwise. I've sometimes done stuff which took many months of my life and resulted in near complete failure in terms of results, but I always gained some skill, or valuable experience, or bits of knowledge along the way. So to me failure is not even a concept anymore.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Look into your past and categorize each experience of anything, good or bad, nice memory or not, failure or trauma think of the past as 'single events' on your timeline. Its just an event that brought you to where you are now. Turn them into events in your mind and it helps you come out of the emotions of it and see its not a personal experience anymore. This helps to compartmentalize it and look at past things as events that had something to learn in it I suppose. You are not there now, you are making life experiences now.

 

[Hourglass]

Anyone that feels the need to “deal with” failure can actually plan and anticipate for a certain amount or intensity or effect of failure so that an occurrence that deviates from what was the previous or original expectation is totally fine and thus the failure would not need to be “dealt with” and instead embraced


Failure and success is subjective. We try to make it objective but sometimes incompetent or unideal individuals or groups determine what success means and these individuals or groups forget about the individuals and outliers that may have a “failure” that is much more valuable to the world than many people’s or group’s attempts at what is perceived to be “success”

 

[sushi]

journal your strengths and weakness and accept the limitations.

 

[dr froyd]

a failure is predictable in the sense that it's one of several potential outcomes. I.e. it's in contrast to some unforeseen misfortune, which is a different category. So in that sense you deal with failure just how you deal with success; either way your next move is to simply make the best available move, just like in a chess game. And it's really not that hard to enumerate the potential outcomes prior to the undertaking - you usually know what the worst possible outcome is.

i know some optimists who never think about the bad outcomes - these people get devastated and distraught when things go bad. Me, I'm always thinking about all the outcomes, and i gotta say it makes life pretty easy

and what we can glean from this is; if you feel the need to 'deal with' failure on an emotional level, it just means you forgot to enumerate the outcomes

 

[Black Rose]

I do not know if I failed or not.

Being that in life I wanted to be an inventor.

I made some things and yet I have no ultimate goal.

The cross between what I wish for and what I have accomplished is not that high.

But I do have a lot of new knowledge, I keep studying as much as possible and never stop.

My research skills have improved since utilizing the internet. I edited Wikipedia and started my own personal wiki once in 2005. I got my first YouTube channel in 2006.

What has bothered me though is not understanding what personality type I am. I am not autistic or schizophrenic. I think I have PTSD, so MBTI is for people without mental illness. I was told when I first thought I was a specific type (the first time I took the questionnaire) that I was an INTJ and that INTJs were wizards.

Currently, my default type is INFP but that does not seem right anymore. The thing is that so many ENTJs and ESTJs think they are INTJs that this filtered into my conception of what INTJ was. INTJ are not control freaks and they are not arrogant. They do not have problems such as sociopathy.

What distinguishes INTJ from other types is ("Gnosis").

In the alchemical process, spirit is in matter and enlightenment is the outcome of spirit in yourself.

INTJs will not think they control all reality, the mastermind is not in control of other minds but of one's own mind. And so there is little room for pride. INTJ can peer into any subject and know what it is about because everything to the INTJ is in the self. And so too the scientific process. They map reality from the inside out. A wizard understands that to perform an incantation is to be Magic on the outside. I can change reality inside me and so outside me.

Because I was so sad all my life I had the innate feeling of failure.

I'd see that others were smarter than me and that nothing I did was any good because I knew so little. I had a strong inferiority complex. My views seemed to not have any value to anyone.

I try and look at it now from the perspective of genius.

INTJs can be or are the archetype of genius.

Not all types of genius but the one that is alone and works in secret on all manner of esoteric things no one can understand but themselves. Mocked sometimes and often rumored to be mad. This then is what I am. A Merlin in the hero's journey.

I NEED A HERO | Catra and Adora from She-Ra​