How To Bounce Back From Failure
The key ingredient and 3 practical tips to bounce back from failure
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Teddy Roosevelt
For the first 22 years of my life, I was highly “successful” by all traditional standards and I had never really failed at anything significant.
I was a straight-A honors student in high school, I excelled in extracurriculars, I got accepted to USC as a Presidential Scholar, I graduated with a full-time job lined up at a great company with a great salary and great benefits, and I had quite literally achieved everything I had ever set out to achieve.
I don’t say this to brag, but rather to make a point here.
Which is that despite my outward success, on the inside, I still always felt like a failure.
No matter how much I succeeded, I still always felt like a disappointment, because no matter how much I accomplished, I still always fell short compared to those who were even more successful than I was.
You see, all of my accomplishments for the first 20-some years of my life were not driven by a desire to succeed, but by a fear of not succeeding.
It was an attempt to prove that I was not a failure.
Because that was how I actually felt on the inside.
Like many over-achievers, I was constantly over-achieving and over-compensating in an (unconscious) attempt to hide the inadequacy that I felt internally.
So, as you might imagine, when I finally came face-to-face with a series of significant failures in my life, I did not handle it well.
My deepest fears and wounds had been exposed, and consequently they sent me into a deep, dark downward spiral of shame and depression.
My entire (false) identity, which had been built around my achievements and my successes, came crashing down.
This happened not once, not twice, not three times… but many, many times throughout my 20’s.
After giving myself some time to wallow in my own self-pity, I can now see that all of this has been a great blessing from God, as He has been initiating something profoundly good in my life.
But until fairly recently, it certainly felt like anything but love. I realize now that God had to completely strip me down to my core so that I could confront my biggest wounds and fears and begin to heal them. This healing process began by asking myself some tough questions, like:
“Who am I when I’m not who I think I am?
“Who am I when I fail?“
“Who am I when I can no longer hide behind my accomplishments and achievements?”
It's been a long, slow, and arduous process of healing and getting back on my feet.
Some steps forward and some steps back.
But thanks be to God, after hitting yet another low point a couple of months ago, I've been feeling an ever-growing renewed sense of strength, purpose, and hope.
After many years of living in shame and guilt, I’m finally beginning to feel even more confident, hopeful, and excited about my future than I’ve ever felt before.
There have been many factors that have contributed to this, but before I get to that, I want to share a quick story with you.
Quitting My Corporate Job & Taking The Leap Of Faith
In January of 2016, I quit my corporate tech consulting job—my very first full-time job after graduating from USC.
I made the decision to leave behind the safety of a lucrative corporate career and took a leap of faith into the unknown in pursuit of online entrepreneurship.
This was by far the scariest decision of my life, up until that point in my life.
I remember the day like it was yesterday.
I took a few deep breaths, walked into my HR manager’s office, and handed her my two weeks’ notice. I told her that while I was grateful for the time I’d spent working at this company, I had made my decision and this was something I had to do.
She was shocked. And so was everyone else, including myself.
I honestly had no idea what the future would hold for me… and if I had known, I probably would’ve never gone through with it in the first place.
I had spent my entire life up working my butt off to make it to this point. To graduate from a prestigious university, to get a secure, well-paying job, and to make my immigrant parents proud of me. When I decided to leave it all behind… no one understood.
My parents, my friends, my coworkers—everyone thought I was crazy.
I didn’t fully understand it myself, either.
Up until this point in my life, I had prided myself on being an extremely logical person.
And while I knew that logically speaking quitting my job did not make any sense, I also knew that if I didn’t do this, then I’d spend the rest of my life wondering “what if?”
And that made my stomach sink.
As terrified as I was of potentially taking this leap of faith and failing miserably…
The thought of waiting 5, 10, 20 years—or even worse, waking up one day on my death bed—and wishing I had done something… was even scarier.
So I made a firm decision that day, a decision that would completely change the trajectory of my entire life, forever.
The decision was this:
I can live with failure, but what I can’t live with is regret.
I figured if there ever was a time for me to take a big risk in my life, it was now.
While I was still young. While I still didn’t have any major responsibilities or other people depending on me. While I still could.
And so I did.
Worst case scenario, I figured, I’d fail for a year and then have to go back to looking for a normal job like everyone else.
But at least I’d get a cool story out of it.
If nothing else, I’d gain some valuable life experience, learn from it, and move on.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world…
At least, that was what I told myself.
8 Years & 7 Failed Business Ventures Later…
Like I said, I had no idea what I was signing myself up for when I took that huge leap of faith so many years ago.
Had I known, I probably never would’ve done it.
Over the last eight years, I’ve started and shut down seven different business ventures. Of those seven, four were profitable (but not sustainable) and three were never profitable at all.
As difficult as it has been for me to admit to myself, when it comes to my entrepreneurial efforts—at least, up until this point—I have failed.
To give myself some credit, at least I managed to survive for 8 years, which is much longer than I ever expected. But the reality is…
Entrepreneurship is really, really hard.
While there are elements of entrepreneurship that I really like (e.g. being your own boss), there are others that I really don’t like (e.g. sales), and I think I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that maybe I’m just not cut out to be an entrepreneur…
And that’s okay.
Or… maybe I just need to take a break from entrepreneurship for now, and give it another go once I’ve re-stabilized financially…
I’m open to this possibility as well, but either way, I’m at peace with my past failures.
Because even though I failed to achieve the extraordinary financial success I had hoped my entrepreneurial ventures would lead to, I don’t consider it a complete failure. You see, despite the insane ups and downs I’ve had to face over the years, my entrepreneurial journey has also afforded me the freedom and the flexibility to travel the world and to experience some truly invaluable, life-changing things that I never would’ve been able to experience otherwise (like my spontaneous decision to move to Bali at one point in 2018).
So even though there have been (many) days when I’ve felt like the biggest failure on the face of the planet…
And even though there have been (many) times when I have felt like my failures have been the end of the world (or at least, the end of my world)…
I remember the decision I made 8 years ago:
I can live with failure, but what I can’t live with is regret.
Now don’t get me wrong.
If I could go back in time and do some things differently, of course I would. That’s called learning…
But no, I don’t regret the risks I took.
Because at least I had the courage to take the chance.
Because at least I won’t spend the rest of my life with a nagging anxiety wondering, “what if?”
Because at least I got a good story out of it.
(Actually, that last point is not true. I did not get a good story out of it… I got countless good stories out of it!)
But most importantly, like I mentioned, I’ve gained invaluable life experience and I’ve learned so much that I never would’ve learned otherwise.
And for that, I am eternally grateful.
The Key Ingredient To Transforming Failure Into Success
Failure truly does have the potential to be your greatest teacher.
I know this is a cliche, but like they say, there’s often a reason why cliches are cliches.
It’s because they’re true.
But here’s the catch.
In order for failure to be your greatest teacher, in order for failure to truly be the huge learning opportunity for you that it has the potential to be, in order for failure to be the gift for you that it can be…
You have to have humility.
At least, this is what I’ve learned from my own experience. Not only from my business failures, but also from my relationship failures, and many other personal failures.
You can’t learn from your failures if you are too proud to even acknowledge them, if you are too embarrassed to even look at them, if you are too ashamed to face them directly and head-on.
Until you can allow yourself to be humbled by your failures, disappointments, and heartbreaks, and until you can understand that God has allowed this struggle in your life for your own good—no matter how it may feel—you will prevent yourself from receiving the priceless learning opportunities hidden in your hardships.
Because until you can approach your trials with humility and trust in God, you will be too blinded by pride and shame to be able to receive all the good gifts that God is giving you.
It was only once I allowed myself to see my failures with humble eyes, that I was finally able to look at them clearly, to analyze them, reflect on them, and to truly learn from them.
In doing so, I’ve now come to realize that all of my failures were actually the best things that ever happened to me.
I know that might sound like I’m being overly dramatic, but I promise I’m not.
As I was writing this post and going back to read some of my journaling reflections on my past failures, I actually came to realize how silly it was that any part of me still looked at my past failures with any sense of shame or embarrassment.
Why?
Because it’s so obvious to me now that what I’ve gained from these failures is so much greater than what I’ve lost.
There’s not even any comparison.
I’m not going to get too into the specifics in this post, because that’s not the point of this post, but just to give you an idea…
Here’s what I lost from my failures:
My false self/my false identity, based on achievement and performance
My pride and an obsessive focus on my self
My false new age religion and the belief that I could be my own savior
Here’s what I gained from my failures:
My true self/my true identity, as a beloved son of God
Humility and a shift in focus from self to other
Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior
Like I said, there’s no comparison.
What I’ve gained from my failures far outweighs what I’ve lost.
I also gained many other things, like tons of skills I likely would’ve never picked up otherwise, but those are all secondary gains to finally knowing my true identity, as a beloved son of God, through my relationship with Jesus Christ…
That is priceless.
On some level, I actually think that this is what I was actually seeking, all along.
I thought I was in pursuit of my passion.
But in reality, I was in pursuit of His passion.
“To Find God is the greatest achievement in life” - St. Augustine
And now that I’ve found it, now that I’ve found Him, nothing’s been the same since.
I’ve finally found the purpose that I’ve been searching for my whole life…
A purpose that is so much bigger than myself and that gives my life so much meaning and hope…
Thanks be to God!
3 Practical Steps To Bounce Back From Failure
Now maybe you didn’t find God through your failures…
Or maybe you did…
But regardless, the key to overcoming failure is to shift your focus from what you’ve lost to what you’ve gained, until you can see that what you’ve gained (namely, the learnings from your failures) outweighs what you’ve lost.
Again, this requires humility.
I think people often misunderstand humility as a weakness, but I believe that humility is actually a sign of true strength, and what separates the men from the boys.
It’s only the wounded man who is so ashamed of his failures—because he fears that it confirms his insecurity that he himself is a failure—that he is unwilling to acknowledge them and is, therefore, unable to truly learn from his failures.
A healed man, on the other hand—because he knows that his true value and worth do not come from his achievements nor from his failures—has no problem owning his mistakes and learning from them.
In fact, a real man is not only unafraid of failure, but on some level, he wants to fail… because he understands that failure is the path which ultimately leads to success.
We all know this to be true and we have heard countless stories to evidence this reality. Just to name a few:
It took Thomas Edison 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before he created the first light bulb.
Henry Ford went bankrupt before starting the Ford Motor Company
J. K. Rowling received twelve rejections before the first Harry Potter book was published.
But even if you never make the next great invention, start the next billion dollar company, or write the next best-seller…
What you do with your failures, your disappointments, your heartbreaks shapes who you are.
And considering struggle is an inevitable part of life that will affect everyone at one point or another in their life, I think it’s very important we learn how to overcome it with as much grace as possible.
Here are three practical steps you can use, that I’ve personally used, to help you bounce back from failure.
Step 1: Pause, reflect, and analyze.
Don’t be so quick to brush your failures to the side and move on to the next thing.
I’ve certainly been guilty of this in the past, and I believe this comes from insecurity. What you want to do instead, is take some time to pause and reflect on your failure. Take inventory. Analyze what happened. Look at the situation directly, head-on, as objectively as you possibly can.
Like I said before, you can’t learn from your failures if you are too proud to even acknowledge them in the first place. So give yourself adequate time to reflect on them. Grieve them. Let yourself feel the pain of disappointment. Acknowledge the loss, but also start to look for what was gained. You don’t want to move past it too quickly, but you also don’t want to dwell on the loss.
As soon as possible, start to shift your focus from what was lost, to what was gained. Every situation, no matter how bad it may seem on the surface, has the potential to be a learning opportunity, a gift, even a blessing—if we are willing to look for it.
Step 2: Forgive yourself and anyone involved.
Sometimes the thing that is blocking us from fully receiving the lessons from our failures is an unwillingness to forgive.
Sometimes this may involve forgiving others who were involved in the situation, and often this may involve forgiving ourselves. If we are living in shame and regret, we will never learn what we were meant to learn from our mistakes. A big moment for me was when I realized that God had already forgiven me, but I hadn’t yet forgiven myself.
Once I accepted God’s forgiveness and forgave myself, I was finally free to move forward. If you’re hung up on your past failures and struggling to forgive (yourself or others), ask God to help you. Also, understand that “forgiveness is a choice. It is not a feeling, but an act of the will… As Neil Anderson has written, ‘Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving; you will never get there. Feelings take time to heal after the choice to forgive is made.’”1
Step 3: Remember your true identity.
You are not defined by the worst thing you have ever done; you are also not defined by the best thing you will ever do.
Your worth and your value does not come from your accomplishments nor from your failures. It comes from who you are in relationship to God. Once I realized that I had convinced myself that I was a failure, I knew that only God could convince me otherwise. So I ran to Him, and begged Him to remind me of who I really was.
He told me that I am His beloved son, and that nothing could ever change this. He told me that He is proud of me, not for what I’ve achieved, but for my courage and for my dependence on Him. He told me that He had great plans for me, that I have what it takes, and that through Him, I can do all things.
When you know who you are—not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of God, and not just intellectually, but in your heart—that’s when things will start to get better.
You Have What It Takes
No matter how many times you have failed…
You are not a failure.
If you’ve failed, it means you’re in the game.
It means you’re taking chances.
It means you’re better off than if you had never even tried in the first place.
The real loser is not the one who tried and failed, but the one who had the opportunity and never even tried in the first place.
Whatever you do, don’t give up.
Don’t lose your passion.
Don’t lose heart.
"He who loses himself in his passion is less lost than he who loses his passion." - St. Augustine
Because if you’re still breathing, God’s not done with you and this is not the end of your story.
Whatever has happened in your past, no matter how many times you have fallen, no matter how long it’s been…
You can start again, today.
I invite you to make a resolution, right now, that you will not stay down, but instead, you will learn from your past failures, and you will bounce back… even higher.
If you’re with me, let me know in the comments!
I believe in you, and more importantly…
So does God.
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Verse Of The Day
“We know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” Romans 8:28
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This quote is from a fantastic book I’m currently reading called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge.
Stefano- I love the level of self reflection and awareness you imposed upon yourself throughout your journey. It takes a great deal of discipline and humility. Thanks for sharing this-
"What you do with your failures, your disappointments, your heartbreaks shapes who you are." Yes. Yes and yes! Thank you for sharing this part of your adventure.
(Also ~ Braveheart pic! Love it. Not just coz I'm a native Scot ~ it's grrreat.)
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