Here’s why sometimes the best thing you can do is admit failure and move on.
We are all cursed with pride. We don’t like to admit that we’re wrong because we’re afraid it will make us feel weak or vulnerable. In reality, that isn’t true.
Everyday, I try to remind myself, “If life isn’t difficult, it isn’t really living.” As I’ve grown older, life has gotten more difficult day by day. Whether it’s school, work, friends, family or dealing with my mental health, I’ve struggled.
Last semester, I set a lot of goals, trying to get control over my life so that I would be able to pull myself out of a cycle of losing friendships, failing grades and a bad lifestyle. I told myself that I could do it and set all these expectations for myself. I didn’t reach a single goal. I ended my semester worse than I had ever planned and found myself in a dangerous state of mind, feeling so alone.
I tried making excuses, looking for a reason why I gained weight, why I didn’t get the grade I wanted or why I felt abandoned. It’s always excuses. We make excuses the moment something goes wrong.
A minute late to work or class? “Oh, I had trouble finding parking.” or “I hit every red light on the way here, haha!” We make up excuses before someone asks why whatever happened, happened.
Over my holiday break, I had a lot of time to think about why I didn’t reach any of my goals, and the answer was quite simple. I failed. The only thing to blame was myself. I let myself down. It wasn’t that I was tired or had too much homework, it was because I wasn’t able to take care of myself the way I wanted to. It’s that simple. There’s no other explanation.
We fail. Life is built around failures, it’s how we learn. How do we move on from that? How do we change?
You admit it. We admit that we failed, that we were at fault. Only from there can you succeed.
I admitted that I failed myself. I admitted that I had let myself down. Now, this semester, three weeks in and I feel good about my progress. I’ve been listening to the advice that I tell everyone else––put yourself first. I’m eating better, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, succeeding in my classes and at my job, and I can feel my mental health improving everyday.
It’s a battle everyday, but it was a fight I would’ve have been able to start until I admitted to myself that I had failed all my previous attempts at trying to be better. People will try to tell you you’re wrong, crazy, be unsupportive, and tell you that you’re not doing the right thing. It’s hard not to listen, because we want to please everybody, but in that process we only hurt ourselves.
So it’s okay if you fail the first few times, I know I have. But now that I’ve been able to admit it, this time, I feel as though everything I’ve dreamed of is in reach.