Learning how to deal with failure

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Robyn_p

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How can we do it? I don’t mean one or two failures, where you learn your lesson and move on. I mean when it’s a constant, unchanging thing. Try, fail. Try, fail. Try, fail etc… Where no matter how hard you work to improve, no matter how much you pray for help, nothing changes. At all. There’s only so many times it can happen before you give up and quit. I’m not even talking about sin necessarily. Just everything.

What do we do then, when it feels like God has left us on our own? How do we not give in to despair?
 
If you find an answer to your question, then please let me in on it. Your post sounds like something I could have written myself.
 
Could you be a bit more specific? What is failing, relationships, family, work, studies?
 
Well, we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Maybe it’s time to try something new?
I think the Lord sometimes challenges else.
God bless you. Still praying for you.
Peace
 
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Robyn_p said:
How can we do it? I don’t mean one or two failures, where you learn your lesson and move on. I mean when it’s a constant, unchanging thing. Try, fail. Try, fail. Try, fail etc… Where no matter how hard you work to improve, no matter how much you pray for help, nothing changes. At all. There’s only so many times it can happen before you give up and quit. I’m not even talking about sin necessarily. Just everything.

What do we do then, when it feels like God has left us on our own? How do we not give in to despair?
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God is always there!! holding you, even in the midst of the failures and sufferings. Ask HIM to send you HIS HOLY SPIRIT and to give you the GRACE of hope, perseverance and peace.

Here is what St Faustina’s diary (entry 90) says about success. Hope you find it helpful 👍

Value in Suffering for Jesus

I saw that God Himself seemed to be opposing [Fr. Sopocko], and I asked the Lord why He was acting in this way toward him, as though He were placing obstacles in the way of his doing what He Himself had asked him to do. And the Lord said,*** I am acting thus with him to give testimony that this work is Mine. Tell him not to fear anything; My gaze is on him day and night. There will be as many crowns to form his crown as there will be souls saved by this work. It is not for the success of a work, but for the suffering that I give reward*** (Diary, 90).
 
I don’t want to downplay the OP’s bad experiences, but the post made me reflect. When I was still working (and had been very successful in my career), I once applied for a senior job I should have got - on paper. It was a sideways move, I had all the experience they wanted etc etc.

After two interviews, they appointed the other candidate, who had no experience at that level. I was devastated at the time, as it was my first job failure. However, had I got that job and as things worked out over the intervening years, I’d have never met my lovely husband.

Looking back on it, it was a good failure and one that taught me a lot.
 
I was thinking more on this today regarding my continued failure at life. It’s hard, it really is. It almost makes me wish I was an atheist because then I could just chock everything up to random chance. When there’s a God who’s supposed to love you and at best it seems like he just ignores you and at worst, sets you up for failure for his own amusement, it makes things even harder.
 
Robyn_p said:
How can we do it? I don’t mean one or two failures, where you learn your lesson and move on. I mean when it’s a constant, unchanging thing. Try, fail. Try, fail. Try, fail etc… Where no matter how hard you work to improve, no matter how much you pray for help, nothing changes. At all. There’s only so many times it can happen before you give up and quit. I’m not even talking about sin necessarily. Just everything.

What do we do then, when it feels like God has left us on our own? How do we not give in to despair?
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What’s the saying, ‘A man who never failed is a man who never tried.’

With every failure, you’re one step closer to success.

I don’t know, you get up and you try again. You give something your best shot, then move on. Horrible thing to get so discouraged you no longer try-- because when you’re 80 or 90 I don’t think you’ll regret the failures, you’ll regret not even making an attempt. Not the things you failed at doing, but the things you never tried.

As someone else said, don’t keep trying things the same way. Meditate and truly learn, then try something else.

Most important, don’t let the opinions or criticisms of other folks get to you:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Teddy Roosevelt

My marriage failed, but I can’t regret it. I always would have wondered how things would have turned out if I hadn’t proposed. Now I know, I can look in the mirror if I ever get old and have no regrets.
 
Bataar said:
I was thinking more on this today regarding my continued failure at life. It’s hard, it really is. It almost makes me wish I was an atheist because then I could just chock everything up to random chance. When there’s a God who’s supposed to love you and at best it seems like he just ignores you and at worst, sets you up for failure for his own amusement, it makes things even harder.
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A priest once told me when I was struggling in hard times-

“We often think why is God doing this to us? When really, its not about us at all, its about someone else. We need some experience to enable us to fulfill God’s plan, and that experience may be necessary so we’ll be able to help someone else, guide them in the future. We think we’re being torn apart by an experience, when in reality that experience will give us the training and strength we need to do what God needs done.”

I’ve abided by the Church’s teaching on marriage and divorce, not dating or seeking companionship. Did my kids need to see that? Was that not about me, but about them seeing the example of someone walking the walk on faith vice just talking the talk? Was my life not about what I will do, but about what my children will do given the experiences and examples that only would have come through this?

The martyrs are even better examples to contemplate. The folks willing to be crucified, tortured, to live the faith completely even unto death. Was God doing that to them? Or will their acts influence other children of God in such a way they will be saved?
 
styrgwillidar said:
A priest once told me when I was struggling in hard times-

“We often think why is God doing this to us? When really, its not about us at all, its about someone else. We need some experience to enable us to fulfill God’s plan, and that experience may be necessary so we’ll be able to help someone else, guide them in the future. We think we’re being torn apart by an experience, when in reality that experience will give us the training and strength we need to do what God needs done.”

I’ve abided by the Church’s teaching on marriage and divorce, not dating or seeking companionship. Did my kids need to see that? Was that not about me, but about them seeing the example of someone walking the walk on faith vice just talking the talk? Was my life not about what I will do, but about what my children will do given the experiences and examples that only would have come through this?

The martyrs are even better examples to contemplate. The folks willing to be crucified, tortured, to live the faith completely even unto death. Was God doing that to them? Or will their acts influence other children of God in such a way they will be saved?
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Maybe someday it will turn around, but at this point, I don’t bother to hope for it. I’m 37 and have no hopes, dreams, passions, goals etc. When I say hope, I mean hope in this life. I still hope to make it to heaven, but when it comes to hoping for things most people hope for, family, friends, house, purpose, meaning, etc, at this point in my life, hoping for it just seems kind of pointless.
 
I am in a similar state. Frequent prayer and receipt of the Sacraments seems to help me. I have prayed for you.

Godspeed.
 
pianistclare said:
Well, we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.
Maybe it’s time to try something new?
I think the Lord sometimes challenges else.
God bless you. Still praying for you.
Peace
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Thanks Clare. I think your prayers have helped actually. They are the only explanation for what happened to me today.

What was frustrating me was I felt like I have been wasting my life. Like I’ve failed too many times and I can never get that time back and it was all for nothing.

But I went to confession today, something I haven’t done in a while. Don’t know why I put it off so long. And when I was praying my penance I…I don’t know. I felt something. A bible verse popped into my head out of nowhere. One I haven’t heard before. It was from Joel 2.

Everyone else here who is feeling like I do please read these verses, because God is answering us through his Word:

23 “Be glad, O sons of Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord, your God;
for he has given the early rain for your vindication,
he has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.
24 “The threshing floors shall be full of grain,
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 I will restore to you the years
which the swarming locust has eaten,

That last verse just stood out so brightly, I knew God was telling me something. That he will make up for it all, all of it, and that it will be better than I can imagine.

This never happens to me. I never feel anything when I pray, but…I got an answer. I still don’t know all the details, how to stop messing up and start being productive, but I know now it’s not and can’t be a waste.
 
Bataar said:
Maybe someday it will turn around, but at this point, I don’t bother to hope for it. I’m 37 and have no hopes, dreams, passions, goals etc. When I say hope, I mean hope in this life. I still hope to make it to heaven, but when it comes to hoping for things most people hope for, family, friends, house, purpose, meaning, etc, at this point in my life, hoping for it just seems kind of pointless.
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Like you, I have Aspergers and also like you I have given up hoping for things other people take for granted, family of one’s own, houses. However God had given me the insight that He created me to know Him, to be loved by Him and to love Him. He gave me that insight last Thanksgiving. When you keep that thought front and center in your life all things pale in comparison. Easier said than done I know but all worthy things are difficult.

Maybe this might seem all like platitudes and pithy sayings to you, but to me all the difficulties that I encountered resulted in this lesson. I think when we look at others, it seems to easy to think that they have it all when we do not know the difficulties they face.
 
When I fail l say, “Thank you Gid for a chance to practice humility.” Then I put my best face on and practice humility. Works every time.
 
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