Are you wondering “how to get over failure” or “what to do when you keep failing?” If so, you’re in the right place and I’m so thankful you’re here. Struggling with failure can rob us of so much and my prayer is that these 12 steps provide the help you’re looking for. I’ll warn you though, getting over failure takes work but it’s work that’ll benefit you in so many ways.
Find the step that most speaks to your need, spend time answering the questions, and then be patient with yourself as you put it into practice.
Just like practice makes perfect, failure paves the road to success.
Be gracious with yourself along the way and look for God in everything, even failures. If you’re ready to learn what to do when you keep failing, we’re starting with one of the most important steps.
Table of Contents
How You Get Over Failure
1. Learn that success is impossible without failure.
Learning that success is impossible without failure is one of the most valuable things to grasp when you keep failing. It’s important because every kind of failure –
- professional,
- relational,
- scholastic…
can all pave the road to success when we begin to learn from our mistakes.
How can you get over failure?
You start by answering these questions:
- What failure’s weighing heaviest on you right now? Try to think about it objectively (learn more here) and
- List out things that may have contributed to the failure.
- Then, write down what you can do differently moving forward and what this failure has taught you.
When you let yourself learn from your failures you’ll find that failures pave the way to success. Look at any successful person’s autobiography if you don’t believe me.
Every time you fail, every time you feel like a failure, look for the lesson, then continue towards your goal.
2. Learn to talk about your failures.
Talking about failure is sooo important. Most of us want to talk about it but if you’re like me, you’re afraid to. Afraid that it’ll change how others view you. But that’s just not true.
A book I’m reading says: “we spend too much time concealing our neediness. There is no shame in it – it’s just the way it is.”
Sharing our neediness and letting people participate with us when we’ve failed invites them to learn from our mistakes and the lessons they teach us..
God designed us to need Him and other people.
Food for Thought Questions
- Who have you shared your failures and the fact that you’re feeling like a failure with?
Invite one or two people to help you:
- learn from your mistakes,
- help you see things you may have missed,
- help you get up and try again, and above all,
- invite them to hold you accountable as you continue moving forward.
When we’re open about our weaknesses and failures we open the door for healing in our lives and the lives of others.
But above all…it motivates us to keep trying.
3. Learn to count your blessings.
Failure often blinds us to the blessings in our lives and instead leaves us wanting and needy.
When I let my mistakes and failures rule I always end up with a case of the “if only’s.”
If only I had…If only I’d done…If only God would do…If only he/she would do…
All our attention is focused on our failures and what may have started as one failure, suddenly opens the floodgates and Satan bombards our mind with a million other ways we’ve failed. A tidal wave of failure sweeps over, washing everything good about life away with it. Or at least that’s how it feels.
You?
When we keep failing, we need to stop, and count the blessings in our lives.
How do you get over failure?
You count your blessings and ask God to show you how to bring Him glory, in the midst of failure.
Food for Thought Questions
- Take some time and journal, or make a list of all your blessings – everything you’re thankful for.
Think about the teeny tiny things, not just the big obvious ones. Every breath you take, the pen you write with, the computer or phone you’re reading this post on, the clean water you drink.
Slow down and spend time with this, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal all the ways God’s blessed you. Then, every time you feel failure sneaking in, take a moment to count your blessings.
4. Learn to celebrate your qualities.
When you seem to continually fail (or feel like you do) it’s hard to think you have any good qualities. Just like the tidal wave that washes away your blessings, failure brings another wave that feels like it washes away everything that makes you amazing, replacing it with negativity and longing.
This negative view of self leads to struggles dealing with any challenge that comes your way and every obstacle, failure, or struggle becomes further confirmation of your inadequacies.
Maybe it’s been a long time since you’ve felt good about yourself or anything you’ve done – that’s okay.
Because recognizing this, is part of how you get over failure.
Food for Thought Question
- Write down how you feel about yourself right now.
- Then, write down the opposite of those things plus everything you enjoy and have ever done well.
- Now that you’ve done those two things, take some time to express all the things you’re feeling about yourself to God.
Give Him every single negative view of self you’ve written down and then ask Him to help you celebrate all the qualities He’s given you, everything on the second list.
Start each day celebrating your qualities, even if you’re struggling to believe they’re true. Every time a negative view of self creeps in, rebuke it and say “No! I’m fill-in-the-blank with one of your qualities.”
5. Learn to change.
Change, it’s the person at the party everyone avoids. But if you want to rise above feeling like a failure, you have to be willing to change what you’re doing.
You can’t stop failing or feeling like a failure, without change. It’s impossible.
One baby step or one giant leap at a time - everything worthwhile involves change.
This is how you become who God created you to be, and when we commit to letting God change us, a ripple effect happens that positively impacts everyone around us.
What do you do when you keep failing?
You ask God to show you what needs changed.
Food for Thought Question
- What needs changed?
- Is it something you’re doing or thinking, or how you’re responding or acting?
Spend time in prayer and being really honest with yourself and then think about what it would take to change whatever you’ve written down. You may need help doing this and that’s okay.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – asking for help is bold and brave.
It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, it means you’re determined to succeed.
6. Learn to recognize you’re a victor, not a victim.
Failure happens when something that needed to be done, didn’t get done or wasn’t done right but being a victim means something or someone has forcibly done something to you. One involves something you can change and the other was out of your control.
The problem happens when you think there’s nothing you can do about your failures and you get stuck in victim mentality. The mentality where life, people, and well, everything…has it in for you.
This can happen when you become so overwhelmed and stressed that you begin to assign blame instead of accepting responsibility. You place yourself into a victim role because it feels safer (it’s not).
Living life stuck in victim mentality keeps you stuck in failure mentality and I know you don’t want that.
You don’t want to continue failing and you don’t want to feel like a failure.
You want to move forward, you want to succeed.
If you truly want to know how to get over failure, you need to make sure you’re not also struggling with a victim mentality.
Food for Thought Question
- Make a list of the things that are making you feel like a failure.
- Are there things you can change?
- Things you can learn from?
- Are they things that happened outside of your control?
Doing this helps you recognize you’re not a victim and empowers you to change the things you can, because failures should be learning events, not defeats.
- If you’re suffering because of something that’s been done to you (or may still be happening) would you reach out to a pastor or Christian counselor and ask for help?
- If you don’t have a pastor, click here so I can help you find help.
7. Learn to value yourself above what you do.
When we value ourselves only based on what we do, our value ebbs and flows based on the success of our “doing.”
Instead, we should value ourselves because of who God created us to be, while also doing what He asks us to. It’s just that while we’re “doing,” we have to remember our worth isn’t found in the “doing” it’s found in Christ alone.
And boy ‘oh boy is it easy to get these things mixed up.
When you do things “as unto the Lord” and “commit your work to Him” you don’t have to worry about the results. Those are up to God and He’ll even use our mistakes.
What should you do when you keep failing?
Food for Thought Question
- Think about the different traits God created you with, the things you enjoy, are good at, and the things you value. Spend a few hours journaling, creating a vision board, or just writing these things down.
- When you’ve finished, how do you feel about yourself?
Consider putting these values and traits onto pretty note cards and placing them where you’ll see them all day. Maybe even rotate the trait and value you’re focusing on each week.
- Find a friend or family member you have a good relationship with and ask them what they value about you, and what positive traits they think you have.
You’ll likely want to disagree with them but don’t. Take what they say seriously and compare it with what you wrote about yourself. Mull on these until you’re able to accept them and see yourself as your loved ones do.
When you value yourself you won’t let failure define you; you’ll only allow it to refine you.
8. Learn to focus on “can” not “can’t.”
Ugh! It is so easy to throw our hands in the air and say “I can’t.”
I can’t eat another healthy meal, can’t be kind to that person one more time, can’t, can’t, can’t. But guess what.
With God’s help, you can and often the only person stopping you, is you.
If you’re wondering how to get over failure, your thoughts and words might have to change.
Food for Thought Questions
- What do you keep failing at?
- How can you reapproach this by focusing on what you “can” do vs. what you “can’t?”
9. Learn to be the best version of you, more often.
Isn’t it encouraging knowing that God is working every single day to make us into the best version of us possible? When I think of all God’s changed in me its mind-blowing. Remember…
As a woman of God, you’re God’s image-bearer and every moment of every day is an opportunity for you to rely on the Holy Spirit to help you be the best version of you.
We need to look at each moment of life, even failures, as something God’s using to mold us more into His image.
How do you get over failure? Try looking at it as a “molding” experience.
Food for Thought Questions
- How did a recent failure mold you more into God’s image and make you more like Christ?
- What did it teach you that helped you become an even better version of you?
Every failure can be used by God to shape you more into His image and mold you into the best version of you.
Stay pliable and moldable and look for how God’s working.
10.Learn to recognize that life is a series of choices, your choices.
Sometimes, I wish I could go back to childhood and stop having to make my own choices.
My adult track record didn’t start off with me making very good choices and even now, 25 years later, I still struggle with choices. I either make them before thinking or try to ignore them completely.
Why?
Because I don’t want to fail.
We have to realize that failure will happen and even when we’ve made the right choices, failure can happen because of things outside our control. Yet no matter the reason for failure, we still get to choose how we respond to and deal with it.
Food for Thought Questions
- How could the choices you make affect how you get over or deal with failure?
- How could your choices keep you from failing or keep you from feeling like a failure when you’ve messed up?
Always remember to look at failures objectively and look for the roles your choices played.
Acknowledging your choices means you can pick up the pieces, make another choice, and try again.
11. Learn to focus on small steps forward and not single steps back.
This one is huge! If every success is paved with failure it means we’ve gotta continue moving forward, one little step at a time.
Think about weight loss.
You’ve decided to eat healthier in order to lose weight and then have an entire bag of chips for lunch. Do you say “forget it, I failed” and give up on eating healthier or…Evaluate why you had the bag of chips for lunch and continue eating healthier?
The first is a single step back and the latter a small step forward. Everything we decide to do is going to involve situations like this, situations where we mess-up, and have to make a choice.
We can choose to throw our hands in the air and quit, or continue, one small step at a time, toward whatever we’ve decided to do.
Success only happens when you continue moving forward and no one’s said it has to be a race.
Food for Thought Questions
- What do you do when you keep failing?
- Do you quit or keep working to complete whatever you’ve committed to?
Don’t let failure hold you back! Keep taking small steps forward and soon you’ll reach your destination.
12. Learn to see God in everything, not just the big things.
This is probably my favorite way to get over failure. It’s actually my favorite way to get through life, period.
Because when you look for God in everything, it changes how you see everything. You begin realizing God’s sovereignty over all things and that causes you to see failure in a whole new light.
What do you do when you keep failing?
You look for God.
This last step could actually encompass the other 11 as well because when you look for God in everything,
- you’ll better understand that success is impossible without failures,
- be eager to share your failures with others,
- begin to count your blessings and celebrate your qualities,
- look for what needs changing,
- recognize that you’re a victor, not a victim,
- you’ll value yourself,
- focus on the “can”,
- become the best version of you, and
- recognize your choices, and take small joyful steps forward.
But…it might take practice.
If you’re not used to seeing God in the little and yucky things in life, I’m going to challenge you to start now.
Food for Thought Questions
- What’s happening right now?
- How are you feeling?
- Where do you see God in these things?
If you’re struggling with this, spend some time meditating on these verses: Psalm 34:18, Psalm 139:7-12, Proverbs 15:3, Matthew 28:20, or Acts 17:27-28
A powerful step in how you get over failure involves seeing God in everything while rejoicing in what it taught you.
Conclusion
My prayer is that one or more of these steps is just what you needed because knowing how to handle failure is so important.
Why?
Because as much as we hate failure and wish it’d never happen, it’s unavoidable. We need to know how to get over failure when it happens and we need tools that’ll help us learn and grow along the way.
So while you’re practicing these steps, remember to take baby steps and show yourself grace.
Cling to God while you’re working through failures because only God can help see you through to the other side.
Next week we’ll look at failure in Psalms (and maybe Proverbs) and how they can be used when we’re struggling with failure.
Until then, meditate on this verse...
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1 Peter 5:10
