Life is full of difficulties, turmoil, and obstacles, and the way people respond to these challenges is very important and plays a major role in their work and decisions. Previous research has demonstrated that people’s expectations that they will experience pleasure or joy play a significant role in how they respond to failure. As they keep imagining how good it will feel when they finally achieve success.
Greener grass or sour grapes?
There is no denying that the saying "the grass is always greener on the other side of the river" is accurate and realistic, given that people tend to spend a lot of time wishing for things they cannot have or that are distinctive and rare. For example, marketing companies delude customers into thinking that their products are unmatched and unparalleled, and in this vein, things that are challenging to obtain gain value and haunt the consumer’s dreams.
This can be projected onto the young man who tries to win over a girl who rejects everyone. This concept is attributed, from an evolutionary point of view, to the fact that man in ancient times was a hunter in the first place, so he instinctively leans towards challenging prey. The male animals also lean towards tough and strong females. The male is attracted to this type of female because of this innate belief that this female is the most capable of carrying their offspring, protecting them, and preserving the continuity of their linage. From this, we draw the conclusion that failure is ingrained in human nature. This is because they clearly and instinctively lean towards what’s more difficult, which results in an increased failure rate.
On the other hand, failure may be a source of frustration and acquiescence and push us to abandon our goals, just as Aesop describes in his famous story "The Fox and the Grapes." In this story, the fox craves a cluster of grapes hanging from the deltoid and jumps trying to reach it, but fails to do it again and again. Eventually, it becomes frustrated and convinced that the cluster is suspended in a very high place above ground level and leaves, telling itself that the cluster is not yet ripe. From this point of view, failure might serve as justification for making success less glamorous or alluring.
A study was conducted on two groups of people in order to determine which hypothesis best describes reality. The first group received encouraging news, compliments, and motivation. On the contrary, the second group received negative statements about their performance. As expected, the first group that received positive support expressed optimism about the outcome. Whereas the second group was overwhelmed by frustration and lacked enthusiasm about the results. At the end of the experiment, the two groups were given high scores, and they found that the amount of happiness they had was similar without a significant difference.
Inspired by Aesop's fable of “The Fox and the Grapes,” we term this phenomenon the “sour-grape effect," A systematic tendency to downplay the value of unattainable goals and rewards.
Do people really know what they want?
The explanation behind the notion that failure makes us expect a lower level of happiness when we succeed is that most people don’t quite know what they want. They adapt their interests in accordance with the options and possibilities available. Hence, people’s desires are connected to what is attainable rather than what they really hope for or consider perfect.
This conforms with the theory of cognitive dissonance, which states that people tend to maintain their self-consistency with themselves. If this process is not followed, they devalue the goal they have instead of themselves. In other words, when we fail to do something, we feel the urge to clear our conscience regarding this failure. This means that we deny our emotional attachment to future results in order to avoid this dissonance.
The results of the previous experiment confirm that the sour grapes effect is actually a defense mechanism. The group that received negative feedback was convinced that their performance had nothing to do with their practical and cognitive skills and didn’t illustrate their true abilities and identities or determine their upcoming success. So, when they received high scores in the final evaluation, they were as happy as the other group. This indicates that, deep down, they knew that this was a placebo effect.
Some people may subconsciously lower their expectations about the future, which is a cautionary measure that aims to reduce the negative consequences in case the worst has occurred.
We can conclude that people’s desires and goals are limited to what is attainable and available. People don’t know what they want or how much they want it. Recent studies have shown that our current desires are also related to the possibility of reaching our goals. If we find that making a positive change in the world or getting our dream job that we have been wanting our whole lives is unrealistic, this may reduce satisfaction or happiness in the event that these excluded aspirations are fulfilled. Therefore, this may lead to a person's lack of commitment to fully achieving their goals.
On the other hand, and from a different perspective, giving up on achieving personal goals that might be unattainable can help you move toward options or goals that are more sensible, realistic, and attainable. However, changing their goals early on may prevent them from reaping the rewards of the experiment even if it is unsuccessful, or it may deprive them of the opportunity to turn the impossible into possible and failure into success.
Nine tips to turn failure into success
- Destroy the barrier that negative news places in your way. If you make a mistake, try to remain focused rather than worrying that others will find out about it, because this is inevitable.
- Provide explanations that avoid circular justification and look for solutions rather than pretexts. Admitting mistakes can have a positive impact on enhancing one’s image and boosting confidence, but only if a legitimate explanation is given. For example, you say that you failed because you missed the deadline. However, saying that you failed because your brother or one of your family members was sick falls under the category of justifications or excuses.
- Develop a clear action plan to fix the problem. The first thing we should do after addressing the problem in case of failure is develop an action plan. Making mistakes in work and life is fairly normal. However, to step aside and avoid confrontations while waiting for someone else to fix the problem is not.
- The best way to prevent mistakes is to have a clear program in addition to a repair program. This is done by observing the most common mistakes and attempting to avoid them. When some mistake occurs, contemplate a way to prevent it from happening again in the future. This boosts your confidence, your experience, and others’ faith in you.
- Try to see failure as a break station. Think of it as the place where you can recharge your energy, reevaluate, and rearrange your plans and priorities before mounting your horse and continuing on your journey. It’s crucial to prevent failure from making you timid. Alternatively, you must prepare yourself to absorb the shock of failure and start applying the lessons learned. Step back for a while, then try again. Don’t linger too long in the waiting stage, because doing so will make you more stressed, anxious, and depressed and may even cause you to lose your temper.
- Give yourself enough time to rest. It's important to remember that even if we put all of our energy into something, we might not succeed. Sometimes we might be so devoted to our work that we neglect everything else in life, and over time we might run out of energy. Hence, taking a break is absolutely essential to keep going.
- Avoid letting your present and future be ruined by regret and hopelessness over things that have happened and ended in the past.
- Don’t be a weak person with a fragile personality who, when faced with failure, collapses, loses their energy, feels weak and angry, and retreats to their room or bed to isolate themselves. This will only make matters worse. You can escape this situation by preparing yourself to take risks. You can simply resort to imagining failure, embodying it, and training yourself to confront it. By doing so, you won't waste time complaining, worrying, getting angry, or having other negative emotions that make failure worse. Instead, you'll immediately take the initiative to find solutions and implement them.
Final words
Optimism is the key to success, and it is a very important feature. An optimistic person gains the ability to return to the right path in the shortest possible time after experiencing failure. A study was conducted on a number of successful businessmen, and it was found that most of them were optimistic that success would be their ally in the end, and if they were to fail, they would remain optimistic. A successful person maintains optimism in any situation. Because they see failure as the foundation of success and believe that every failure is in fact a valuable lesson.
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