How many times do children fall when they attempt to walk for the first time? We know he or she falls hundreds of time, sometimes getting hurt in the process. Yet is driven by curiosity and wonder about the new world it is discovering. They persevere in spite of all the challenges and obstacles they encounter to standing upright. They demonstrate resilience that sees them succeed. There is no such thing as failure in their mind and world.

Fortunately, children learn to walk before they can talk. If we adults were able to communicate to them at that tender age, we may instil in them our fear, anxiety and limiting beliefs on the task. We would express that the world is fraught with danger and that they have to be careful if they wish to venture forth. As much as we mean well, we would teach them the concept of failure thus instilling a fear, that may very well outweigh the excitement of discovery.

I ask a particular question to inpatients at our group session in the wellness clinic. “How many times is it appropriate to fail, before we justifiably give up?”

All seem to know what answer to give to the question. Answers would range from ten too numerous to infinite. All would agree, nodding in approval. That we must keep on trying.               

There would be no choice but to ask, therefore, the inevitable next question. “How many times did we fail before we gave in to the circumstances in our life, leading us to be here?”

Many would acknowledge that as much as they had tried and failed, they eventually gave up. Some had tried numerous times before they had succumbed. Some had tried a few times. For others, it was just that one curveball, for example, that one broken relationship that had broken them. They eventually found themselves overwhelmed by the situation. They felt they had failed leading to admission and treatment.

As much as we recognize nowadays that we must never stop trying, most of us may try once or twice and then give up. Yes, it does feel like it’s a barrage of challenges we face every moment.  We endeavour to rise, yet we struggle and fall down. We define ourselves as having failed and don’t try again. We take on the mindset of being a victim of the circumstances of our life.

When patients I admitted, as part of the initial interview, I always ask. “What is it that you fear?”

The number one answer I receive is a failure. We set a high standard of meeting up to society’s expectations and thereby fitting in with what is defined as success. We constantly are aspiring to some manmade criterion for fear of not fitting in into the defined paradigm of having arrived. If we have not met up this defined standard, we feel we have failed. All have imposed such a high expectation on themselves; it seems we deliberately set ourselves up for failure.

When we feel we’ve failed, we hit rock bottom mentally and emotionally, it can take years for us to recover. Failure strikes us down and seems to hold us there. We have not met up to societal expectations and we see no way out as the society we live in the world that we live in and this world is all we know. We wear the label and title of failure, too fearful to try again as this means possibly having to deal with the whole emotional repercussions of failure, all over again.  The energy and enthusiasm that once gripped us, seems to be lost forever. We can only reminisce about the good times that once were as we dwell in the abyss of that what we feared most, we have become.

Why do one or two failures define who we are? Why do we fall then into the pits of depression and not rise again? Why do we not dust ourselves off, like the children we once were and try again?

Remember a time at school, college or university when we wrote a test or exam? How many answers were they to a question? Generally, there is just one answer...