Ask HN: How do you deal with being a failure?

Seek professional advice. I did, and it helps.

Secondly, failure is highly contextual. Had you not tried, you probably would have hated wondering if it would have worked or not.

Lastly, stoicism is strongly recommended. Read the meditations and take pleasure in the ordinary experiences.

It's not a competition. Being nice to people counts for a lot.

Well that's one subject I have some experience with.

I will offer three pieces of advice.

First I suggest you learn about non-dualism. If you come to understand it you will realize that what you think of as your "self", ie. your body/brain/mind is not your true self and your true self can never be a "failure" because that is a property and your true self is free of properties. I recommend Rupert Spira as one of the best western teachers of this philosophy. See https://non-duality.rupertspira.com/introduction and his videos on YouTube. I think this is the underlying truth behind virtually all spiritual/religious traditions.

Second if you find non-dualism too radical a change in thinking for you to accept you might try stoicism. A good place to start there is probably the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (a 2nd century Roman Emperor).

Third "failure" is a label that probably isn't very useful to apply to oneself. Many things happen in life that we have no control over. To a large extent it's a game of chance and for better or worse we live in a world that worships the winners and tries its best to forget about the losers. Hence blaming yourself for what you perceive to be "failures" has little rational basis and is typically not useful. However unless you can gain some distance from your thought processes (such as by following my first or second pieces of advice) this fact may be difficult for you to grasp.

Failing != Failure.

Failure implies you stopped trying. Failing is the first step to being kinda good at something.

The real failure is settling for a job you don't like. It can be mediocre in your opinion, something you "settled" for, but you must at least have some sort of attraction to it.

Also, success comes in many forms, not just professionally or financially.

What is here to discuss in the first place?

If you failed (or you think you failed) — just live with it and move ahead.

There’s so much more things worth trying that you didn’t fail yet ;)

If you don’t really think you failed or looking for ways to “unfail”, then there is no actual failure, just a process of life.

Then its a different question and you better be more specific — what are you trying to unfail?

What helped me a lot is realizing that there will always be people who are better than you. It does not matter how much time, energy, and effort you put into something, the chances of achieving your dream job, become the best in sports, earn tons of money, become fluent in all languages, are very slim. There will always be people who are better than you, and comparing yourself with those people will make you feel "mediocre" automatically. So stop comparing yourself with others, it doesn't matter. Don't compare your current job with other jobs you could have, don't compare your salary with salaries you could have, don't compare your current girlfriend with girlfriends you could have. There will always be people better, smarter, richer, more charismatic or more lucky than you. And remember, most people are average by definition.

Instead, compare yourself to whom you were last year. Did you become better, wiser, more happy than you were before? If yes, you succeeded in life. You did not fail. If not, fix it. And very likely you can fix this by putting your expectations lower, because you aimed too high. But please, stop comparing yourself with others. It doesn't matter.

Would you really going feel that much better if your ventures had “succeeded” (whatever that means). Odds are if you were rich you would wish you were richer. If you were powerful you’d wish you were more powerful.

You can learn to accept that what you’ve got is what you’ve got and that fundamentally none of it matters.

Personally, I have no dreams and no goals and I get by just fine. Just passing time until I die and it’s not awful. There’s nothing wrong with mediocrity. Most people are mediocre (me included).

After being stuck for years in my life, what helped me, to speak metaphorically:

I believe everyone has a barrel right in front of them that's full of all kinds of things they're trying to avoid acknowledging: harsh truths about themselves and their life, shirked responsibilities, excuses, lies, self-delusion, the little games that they're trying to get away with instead of behaving properly etc.

The barrel is so hideous to look at that we rather not look at it at all and go around living our life pretending as if it doesn't exist. We subconsciously believe that it will somehow disappear if we just don't acknowledge it for long enough time, and because almost everyone else around us is also doing the same thing we get the implicit social cue that the barrel is nothing to worry about.

Additionally, some things in the barrel are impossible for ourselves to perceive because every human being has genuine blind spots and also because our brains actively modify our perception to hide things from us in order to maintain our psychological sanity, a self-image of ourselves as a good guy. People need the help of others to scour their blind spots and typically they react to this discovery process so badly and emotionally that we rather just keep silent to not upset others, even if they seem eager to really want to see the truth about themselves. It's no joke to have your erroneous self-image blown to pieces by truth.

Rather than a quick fix to being successful, rectifying the barrel is a long and a humbling journey and a task for a lifetime. However, as I've taken my few first steps along this path, I can say it seems to work better than anything else, and so to me it doesn't matter if it takes time because it seems a worthwhile pursuit to invest the rest of my life in. I only wish someone would have shown me this way earlier so I wouldn't have wasted so much time, but as the saying goes: "What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end."

I heard some advice that asked “what would you do if you knew you were going to fail?” and then to do that.

It was really liberating to make me think of things that were interesting and valuable to me and also to be frugal with others resources.

So it helps me prepare for failure and so when it occurs to just keep doing it. Come in the next day and do some more.

It also helps me have a really long horizon on work so that every day is sort of like planting a few seeds for a plant that no one likes.

Mediocrity can be perfectly fine if it’s accretive. It’s the churn that stalls us out. Making marginal improvements every day is actually wonderful.

If I’m truly locked into a terrible situation and I have no creative freedom, I just try to focus on the art of the mundane task. I once worked in tech support and we were super rigid and it was kind of boring. I spent time trying to understand the patterns in customers calls and needs, because I had to be on calls, I worked the “credit backlog” by correcting customer issues where they had emailed and recorded an error. It was super boring, but let me find common features that caused the need for credit. And just knowing that made the calls a little more tolerable.

It’s basic advice, I know, but just having a mindset that I’ll always come into work lets me keep going when a company fails. Or more likely, I completely bomb a presentation or don’t get a job.

Also helps that I know my own failures better than anyone else and I’ve found that what I see as a failure is invisible to others.

You have to reframe your definition of success to be more focused and not simply generic “financially successful and working at cool company.” I find the Japanese concept of shokunin to be useful here.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artisan#Shokunin

Pick something that is accessible, affordable, and can be worked on in small time blocks (as in, it doesn’t require long stretches of uninterrupted time).

Focus on it for the next decade. You’ll become one of world’s experts, or at the very least in the top 1%. Want to be an expert on Chinese art history? Making handwoven wool clothing? Whatever it is, you can do it, within obvious limitations like height or age for professional athletes.

And the best part is that this route to success is possible no matter what age you are.

"every venture I tried didn't succeed"

What did you try ? How long ? How many times ? What are your Goals really ? If you can contemplate answers to these questions, you may unlock more things to help you.

Honestly, crushed dreams sucks. It hurts. BUT the question is did you do enough ? Did you want it bad enough that you went all the way ? What did your really try ? Deep down, only you know the answer.

I think you eventually get used to it. More importantly you learn to set up smaller goals and get more satisfactions from them. Nowadays I'm happy to be "mediocre" because hell knows when will real-life suddenly crushe upon me and even being mediocre is a dream.

By succeeding. Adjust your definition of success to something actually meaningful and enjoy life.

I fail at dealing with being a failure.

I feel similar to what you wrote. I try not to care and do what I want. Work stuff isn't the hard part, it's balancing that with the family responsibilities that really grind you down.

You are a failure only in your mind.

For the homeless you are success.

For the old grandma you are a "catch" and a good candidate for her daughter.

the thing is. Your dreams weren't yours. You just copied some formula.

Imagine you are a "The sims" people that stubbornly tries to do X while your "real" persona is saying: "Dooon't go there... do this... Damned. I will break this then until you change course."

My Advice: Don't think about yourself. Be Useful. Go to your local church and help just be there.

We need people to help, to do "small" tasks and help community.

We need you. There are literally people outside that NEED you. NEED your experience and Wisdom or just to talk.

Be among people, help people.

I don't try to pass. That's liberating. I am free to be mediocre at things I enjoy instead of things I don't. Free to fail at things I chose rather than at obligations...please consider the irony of putting stock in my advice.

I double down. I make another plan at the edge of my abilities and endure immense stresses executing it. The less lifetime I have left, the more risk I am prepared to take. I will not "settle for mediocrity".

You only fail if you give up

> When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

Ecclesiastes. Read it. But know that once you read it, you can't un-read it.

I highly recommend hitting rock bottom, because when you get there you know everything after is up.

I realized during failures, that the pain I was experiencing was due to me placing my self-worth on external events / entities. It's a very subtle thing that slips very subconsciously. Look around you, almost everyone gets a high from a bit of external positive occurrences / feedback.

What helped me get centred is realizing that I am a better judge of my self-worth and letting the failures and successes be the measure of my self-worth is tiresome. Balance is key.

Understanding that real life success most often requires some degree of luck / network also helps.

Hey you're one of the very very few sentient beings, in a universe with hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars (read that in Carl Sagan's voice), that knows they live in an enormous universe. Other people is not the context of your life, existence is.

JUST

KEEP

JUMPING

If you need to work a little longer and sock away cash so you can jump again and try another idea or work for another startup, do it. Keep going until you land where you want to be.

I heard a great podcast with Vlad from Robinhood and he basically said that you can keep living this life as a passive participant or you can take the first step and try.

Just keep taking the first step.

Always jump!

Just separate yourself from the idea of failure.

What you did was a failure, but who you are is not.

There's no need to burden yourself with this idea of failure. Stay light and keep moving forward. Moving forward is the essence of success, you can't lose if you put forth an honest effort in everything you do.

Find a way to be happy in your life as it exists now. In other words, try to not make success a precondition for your happiness.

This doesn't necessarily mean you should settle for the status quo. When viewed in hindsight, it feels better to have tried and to have failed than to have not tried to begin with.

Find your thing(s).

You can work a job you don't like as long as it fuels your other hobbies.

You can work an all consuming job and love every second of the grind and have no hobbies.

Most people find something in between.

Learn, you are lucky to live at a time (and place) when the worlds information is right at your fingertips.

Figure out your goals and then figure out a plan to get there.