How to handle failures and build a positive mindset

Dealing with failure and staying positive is difficult but a correct approach can help you come out on top of an adverse situation.

You must not blame yourself post a failure. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

Clince Varghese Updated: 11 Apr 2022, 23:00 pm IST

There has never been a more important time than now for us to invest in our mental and emotional well being. So many of us are constantly striving to be happy and successful in life and we are constantly on the lookout for the right approach to achieve the same. While failures can demotivate us from taking actions in life, we all have heard of the age-old saying, “a right balance of exercise, nutrition and sleep is a driving force to happiness”, but what’s the real secret to being happy?

From my experiences of interacting with Olympic gold medalist’s to Bollywood Superstars, and taking cues from business tycoons to spiritual Gurus, the ability to look at every crisis as an opportunity helps you be more productive and efficient.

However, there are many scenarios where one may feel defeated. For instance, how can one be positive when one goes through a breakup, loses a near one or goes through a financial crisis? To dig deeper into that, I enrolled for a month-long Buddhist monk lifestyle experience at the resident monastery of H.H. the Dalai Lama in the Himalayas, located in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. The experience provided me with the privilege to attend a private audience with H.H the Dalai Lama and helped me learn the tricks to be a winner in life.

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world laughter day — Your happiness is in your hands. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

H.H reminded us that in order to be a winner, one must train like a winner. He emphasised that our behaviour is a collection of everyday actions and our actions are influenced by our thoughts and feelings. However, how we think and feel is deeply rooted in our belief and value systems and thus, it’s important to build a strong foundation of belief and value systems that can be the driving force in life. When we have such a strong and stable foundation, we are wired to have a problem-solving attitude in life.

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With such a positive mindset, every failure becomes a learning point to improve our knowledge, skills and mindset. This also helps us laser focus towards working on our shortcomings and find opportunities to improve ourselves rather than blaming others.

So, while failure can be extremely hard to cope with, you must remind yourself that just like you have to have the medicine yourself to get better when you fall sick, similarly, on your own, you have to take action towards building a positive mindset to manage failure and pursue happiness.