What does failure mean? How do people fail? Why do people fail? What is success? Why is it that certain people are successful and other people are not? What does success even mean? Who gets to define what success is and what failure is?
We can all admit that the answers to these questions can get complex and even philosophical. Certain professional fields might have benchmarks to define success and failure. And within other fields, including different aspects of life, success and failure can be very subjective and relative. For example, a modest family that goes on an international vacation every other year and has healthy relationships compared to a well-off family with a big house that can afford to go on two international trips per year and has a toxic household environment. Which of these families is “better” and more successful?
What I’m more interested in is the mindset behind success and failure and the relation to mental health.
When I was twelve years old, I competed in track and field, specifically high jump and long jump. If I remember correctly, the competition was a two-week tournament. It was my first time ever taking part in track and field activities.
I started off with the long jump. Somehow, I qualified for the semifinal. After one of my jumps, I was told I’d broken the school record, including the school records held by older students. I felt happy and at the same time, I didn’t really know what it meant. I don’t even remember if I won a medal or not (most likely not).
Then, it came to the high jump tournament. Somehow, I was more emotionally invested. The competition was pretty stiff and I was feeling the pressure to win.
Even nowadays, I can remember the emotional rollercoaster I was on during my last four jumps. I did very well with the first jump and I felt confident and good. After a short break, I was back on the field and ready for the second jump. If I won this jump, then I would be in the championship round. I ran wholeheartedly, jumped, and knocked the bar off. This startled me. Even though I had two more attempts, I could tell that my confidence was shaken.
I attempted one more time. I could feel that my body was over the bar, and somehow, I accidentally tipped the bar off with my left foot. Now, my confidence hit rock-bottom from the high feeling I had experienced during the first round of jumps.
While I was standing there waiting for my last jump, looking at the bar, I could feel this unbearable pressure inside my body and head. I had no coach to process this feeling with. No one gave me a pep talk. I was just standing there alone by myself waiting and being consumed by this anxiety and fear.
Even though rationally I knew I could win it, my body and emotions were telling me that there was no way I could make that jump. I was “telling” myself that I was going to knock the bar off again and fail. Part of me just wanted to leave the field and go back to my dorm room because I couldn’t manage the pressure, anxiety, and overwhelming emotions inside me. And, it was like a self-fulfilling prophecy; I started running and by the time I jumped, I could feel that I didn’t give my best. I was defeated even before I made that final jump.
Months later, the school hosted a chess tournament. The tournament was free for all, meaning there was no age limit between the students. I played very well and advanced to the final championship round. My success was a shock to the teachers and students because I beat off some of the smartest and best chess players that were older and more experienced than me.
Then, it came to the final championship round. The student that I was facing was five years older than me and twice my body size. On a daily basis, I was intimidated by him because he was hailed by the teachers as the model student that is smart, hardworking, and has good behavior. In reality, I felt daunted by him because he came from what I perceived as a good, loving, and supportive family, which I didn’t have.
When we sat down and were ready to play, the unbearable pressure from the high jump resurfaced inside me again. Teachers and students were watching. Some students wanted me to beat him because he was a model student. Internally, I was telling myself that “I can’t beat him because I am not worthy of winning.” My brain drew a blank and the will to win simply dwindled. Even though there were a handful of opportunities where I could have won the game, just like the high jump, I gave up even before I tried.
These memories and experiences don’t haunt me anymore (all credit to my former therapist and the work we put in together). Instead, they serve as a reflection point for me to contemplate the meaning of success and failure in relation to my mental health, and these memories continue to guide both my personal and professional life.
Looking back at the high jump and chess tournaments, the pressure and anxiety got to me because of the praise that I’d received and the expectations that were put on me. As a twelve-year-old kid, I didn’t have a trusted person/adult to help me process my thoughts and emotions. With the success that I’d had up until the championship moments, I had been level-headed and cruising on what I was enjoying doing, pursuing my own expectations and not others’ suppositions.
Anxiety is real and it sucks. There are many reasons why people feel anxious. Through years of mental health healing and self-discovery journeys, I have been using a set of tools to process and manage my anxiety. Here are a few that has worked well for me
1. Connect to Oneself – Instead of trying to suppress or distract yourself from the anxious feelings with unhealthy habits, learn to acknowledge, become aware of, and embrace these feelings. Yes, these emotions are unpleasant. The way to overcome fearful feelings is to learn to be present with them. Using physical pain as an example, in order to heal that injury in your leg, you have to know where the pain is located and how the pain is hurting you.
2. Process it – Only after you have acknowledged, embraced, and come to know the emotional challenges you are experiencing, you will start to have some control over these anxious feelings. When you start having some sort of control, then you can start choosing how to overcome them. According to Tim Ferriss, the idea behind “fear(less)” is not having no fear at all, but instead, it is having less fear and learning to process and manage it. Here are the steps I use to process and overcome these anxious and unpleasant feelings:
- Mindfulness – Continue to practice mindfulness and be aware of the feelings, what is trigging them and how they are making you act or react.
- Connect to Others – When you feel you are ready and have a trusted person to talk to, share, and process your experiences and feelings with that person. When you are able to verbalize and call out your “demons” and pains, you start having control over those emotions.
- Taking Actions – If you haven’t done so yet, build up and engage in healthy daily routines and habits like journaling, exercising, listening to or playing music, napping, a good night’s sleep, etc. Healthy routines and habits help to prevent these unwanted emotions from going haywire and they help you to manage and control the anxious feelings.
Image by archies7 from Pixabay
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