How To Deal With Failure & Ways To Cope

There’s an email notification on your browser, and it’s an email you’ve been waiting for. After the application, the interview – the news has finally arrived. You open it up, and… “Thank you for applying, but…”

Failure comes with so many negative thoughts. Maybe it’s thinking that you’re not good enough, or maybe you feel like that rejection letter is basically your whole world crashing down. We’re afraid to share our failures because we’re afraid to expose our flaws and insecurities. So many thoughts and feelings are associated with failure, but one of the main things we should feel towards failure is that it’s normal.

Failure is normal, natural and so crucial to our learning process. But that initial reaction to rejection is like a punch in the gut, making us feel so down and so low. Dealing with failure means talking about it and finding ways to cheer yourself up.

Talk To Friends And Family

What better way is there to get reassurance that we are, in fact, not failures? Your friends and family members have seen your triumphs and your achievements, so let down your walls so that they can see your valleys and lows too. Let them remind you of all the highs you’ve reached and all the destinations you will continue to go in the future.

Bake Your Favorite Dessert

There’s no cure like a delicious and warm cookie. Or a brownie. Maybe cake. Whatever it is that will get some sugar in you and cheer you up.

Dance Session

Invite your friends over and blast music as you dance your heart out to your favorite pop songs. Once the playlist has ended and you’re all lying on the floor sweaty but laughing, you’ll realize that there is so much more opportunity – so much more love and life and laughter, for you to live than to sit around moping.

Keep Pushing Forward

If it was a rejection for a job or an internship, try replying with a polite email inquiring about what they were looking for, and how you can improve for next time. The key to coping with failure is acknowledging that there will be a next time and that you should keep pushing forward and improving so that you’ll be prepared for the next opportunity.

Failure is normal and happens to even the best of us. Use each failure as a lesson or even a motivation to keep you moving forward and working hard. Rejection, failure – they only make your victories that much sweeter. 

• college
• coping
• failure
• rejection
• stress