If you are honest with yourself, you will admit you have felt like a failure at least once in your life, whether this is in your career, friendships, romantic partnerships, or in life, generally. For most of us, this feeling happens a lot more often, and for some, this failure feeling never truly goes away. What does it mean to “feel like a failure,” and is there anything you can do about it?
Feeling like a failure is often associated with low self-esteem and feelings of stress and anxiety. When you feel like a failure, you feel blue, like nothing you do is ever good enough and that you are never good enough. But you can turn this feeling around.
It is actually normal to feel like a failure. Yes, I know, this sounds so counterintuitive. But it is true. Part of being human is feeling like a failure, but this doesn’t mean you are, actually, a failure. We all fail at something, like completing a daily to-do list; however, feeling like a failure means you have negative thoughts about yourself.
Most importantly, feelings of failure are normal if they are temporary. If they are long-lasting and nothing you do helps you get out of that mental funk, it may be best to seek the help of a qualified healthcare professional.
Can you overcome feeling like a failure? Understanding the psychology of why you feel like a failure and following certain key steps will help you understand your own failure biases and keep things in perspective, so you can start believing in yourself.
Do You Feel Like a Failure?
Answer the following questions to determine if your feelings of failure are about something or about yourself:
| Question | Answers |
| 1. When do you most often feel like a failure? | |
| 2. Think about your thoughts. Do you mostly think positive thoughts about yourself? Or are they mostly negative ones? | |
| 3. Have you attempted any self-help hacks to help you overcome your fear of failure? | |
| 4. If you try noticing your achievements and focusing on your successes, do you still feel like a failure? | |
| 5. While attempting tasks and goals, do you worry about failing? Why? | |
| 6. If you have achieved a goal, do you feel anxious? | |
| 7.a. Do you compare yourself to others? 7.b. How often do you compare yourself to others? 7.c. In what way do you compare yourself to others? | |
| 8. Do you feel like your successes are largely due to luck and that people will see you for the imposter you are? | |
| 9. Do you ever self-sabotage your success? | |
| 10. When you feel like a failure, do you feel down for a while but then bounce back, or are you fully depressed? |
When Can You Feel Like a Failure
You can feel like a failure at any stage of your life and definitely more than once too. Here are examples of situations where you may end up feeling like a failure:
- Taking a chance and trying something new, even though you were worried you won’t succeed, and then failing at the task
- Being rejected by someone you like or want to impress, whether a friend or romantic interest
- Scrolling through your Facebook wall or other social media feeds and seeing all the “perfect” lives of your friends, colleagues, family, and the successful and famous
- Comparing yourself to others—whether you know them in real life or not—and believing you haven’t accomplished as much, you are not as good, and your life isn’t as perfect as theirs
- Setting out to form a new healthy habit, like exercising three to four times a week, and then life throws curveballs your way and you get super busy, leaving no time for exercise (and you gain a few pounds instead)
- Not meeting your short- or long-term goals
- Not getting that promotion at work you’ve been working so hard for, or not getting that new job at the fancy company with all the great benefits
- Finding out you are unable to have kids or realizing you don’t want any (despite what your partner or mother wants you to do)
- The ending of a relationship
- Your parents constantly praising your sibling(s) and giving them more attention
- Not doing as well as you wanted to or failing a test or exam
- Not meeting societal goals and expectations of getting married or having kids
From these examples, feelings of failure can develop inside of you because of what you believe or poison you from the outside; that is, what happens to you and what you experience can lead you to feel insufficient.
How Do You Experience Any Fear of Failure
Common symptoms of feeling like a failure are:
- Low self-confidence and low self-esteem
- Negative self-talk, like saying “I won’t be chosen for the baseball team; I’m not good enough” or “My colleague won’t ask me for help; I’m not smart enough.” (And the classic “I suck” can’t be neglected.)
- Perfectionism—only undertaking tasks you know you will succeed at (and even doubting your abilities in those).
- Self-sabotage—anxiety, procrastination, and thinking you won’t succeed (so why even try, right?)
What Is Failure? Understanding the Psychology
Feeling like a failure hurts for many reasons, and you might be stuck in this negative feeling about yourself due to:
- Depression
A common cause of depression stems from feeling like a failure. You feel like you haven’t accomplished anything, you have no reason to wake up in the morning, and your whole life lacks meaning. However, we all want something, whether it is to achieve a goal or make our dreams a reality.
This internal desire of wanting something means we have to do something to attain it, and this is going against the brain’s default mode of energy preservation or staying in rest cycle (except when the body needs to meet its basic needs of food and sleep). This conflict can cause tension and feelings of not being able to do what you want.
Every time we fulfill a task and meet a goal, we are rewarded with a feel-good sensation by the release of dopamine. And this explains why you feel good when you do something positive.
But when you don’t achieve your goals, you don’t get that dopamine kick, and into the spiral of feeling like a failure you fall.
- Limiting Beliefs
Could your feelings of failure be due to self-sabotage? If you feel inadequate and like you cannot succeed, it may be because you limit your happiness and negate the success you think you deserve. Therefore, you feel like you are not succeeding because you are not achieving more. (Yet, you never even tried, because you can’t, right?)
- Learned Helplessness
This is an internalized feeling of failure when you’ve experienced abuse, trauma, or a continuous stressful situation. You believe nothing can change your circumstances for the better, even when opportunities for positive change arise.
Due to this self-defeatist way of thinking, you learn that you shouldn’t even try taking advantage of new things as you fear failure.
- Imposter Syndrome
If you suffer from imposter syndrome, you believe any previous success was due to luck, not qualifications or talent, and that others perceive you to be more competent than you actually are.
With each task you undertake, whether it is a success or failure in the end, you worry that you will fail and others will see you for the “imposter” you are.
- Victim Mentality (or Glorified Victimhood)
Nearly every time you say you “can’t,” you actually mean you “won’t” do something. Why? Because you feel comfortable as a failure and thrive in this negative feeling instead of escaping from it and grabbing hold of opportunities to succeed.
Thinking you “can’t” do something means you don’t even have to try, thus, you “won’t,” because you are just going to fail, right?
Feeling Like a Failure? What to Tell Yourself
There are several steps you can take to help yourself feel more engaged and positive, starting with positive self-talk. Here are a few things you can begin to tell yourself:
| What to Say to Yourself | Why? |
| I’ll focus on what I can control. | Always focus on what is within your control, like trying your best, instead of what you can’t, like whether you do get the job you’ve applied for. Just because you didn’t get the job or fail at a task doesn’t mean you are not good enough. |
| Failure is uncomfortable, but I can deal with it. | Being unsure of whether you can deal with the shame, embarrassment, or regret that comes with failing makes that feeling of failure last that much longer. Think to yourself that you can handle failing because you are strong and capable. The feeling of failure will pass if you let it. |
| It may not have worked out how I wanted it to, but I’m OK. | If you’ve failed or feel like a failure, keep that momentary defeat in perspective and be grateful for what you do have. There is always something to be grateful for. |
| Failing means that I can work towards being a better me. | To live relatively free of failure means you live in your comfort bubble. To become a better you, you have to take risks, break the comfort bubble, and possibly experience and face your fears. But you get back up and try again. Only by falling down, or being willing to, can you accomplish something. |
| Failure is not who I am. | If you fail at something, you are not a failure. You can’t succeed at everything in life, no matter how hard you try. And honestly, everyone fails and everyone succeeds—just not always at the same things. |
7 Steps to Overcome Feeling Like a Failure
Take the fear out of failing by learning how to cope with failure in healthy ways:
1. Embrace Your Emotions & Practice Self-Compassion
With feeling like a failure comes a whole range of uncomfortable emotions, from anger and anxiety to shame, embarrassment, and sadness. In a study published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, researchers found that it is better to think about your emotions rather than the failure that caused it, as it can then motivate and encourage you to work harder next time.
Also practice self-compassion, which is vital to your mental well-being, because you are worthy of love and you should extend the same kindness towards yourself as you would towards others.
2. Take Responsibility
You need to accept responsibility for your failure; however, your responsibility should be proportionate to your level of failure.
Taking on the appropriate amount of responsibility for your failure means you don’t blame yourself unnecessarily. But only placing blame on other people or circumstances will mean you won’t be able to learn anything from failing.
3. Think Realistically About Failure
According to a study, people are more likely to self-sabotage when they convince themselves that one mistake makes them a complete failure. In one of the experiments, the participants ate pizza and were told they had utterly messed up their diet. The dieters who thought they were total failures later ate 50% more cookies than the non-dieters.
If you think there is no reason to try or you are a hopeless cause, it is best to reframe your thinking by thinking of failure realistically:
- My failures have something to teach me.
- If I fail, I tried and challenged myself to do something new and difficult.
- I can deal with failure.
4. Identify and Stop Any Attempts to Cope in Unhealthy Ways
To deal with the pain of failure, you may resort to unhealthy habits, like smoking, drinking, stuffing your feelings with food, and/or engaging in negative self-talk, like saying to yourself that you didn’t want that promotion anyway.
However, dealing with your pain unhealthily is only a temporary way of avoiding or minimizing it, and may, in fact, only make you feel worse.
5. Find Healthy Coping Mechanisms
Find healthy coping skills when you feel like a failure and when you have actually failed. You could exercise, cook a healthy meal, call a friend, journal about how you feel and what happened, or practice mindfulness.
6. Turn Failures Into Goals
You can turn failures into actions and goals by changing the way you perceive things. For example, instead of saying “I didn’t get that promotion; I failed,” you can say “I worked really hard and put in all the extra hours I could, but Jane does have three years more experience than me. I can continue to work hard and try again when the next promotion opportunity comes up.”
The first statement looks at the past, where you can’t change anything; the second, more positive statement looks to the future where you are empowered and you have control over your actions.
7. Move Forward by Creating a Plan & Asking What You Can Learn
Continuously thinking about your failure and why you feel like a failure is not a productive way to spend your time. You’ll only continue to feel stuck in the endless cycle of why you failed, what you could (maybe) have done better, and negative self-talk.
If you want to learn, failure is a wonderful teacher. So, visualize what you can do differently next time you are faced with a similar situation. Move forward by creating a plan so you are prepared.
Looking for some inspiration to start overcoming your fear of failure? Watch this TEDx video in which Debora Berebichez shares her story about how she achieved her dreams despite feeling like a failure:
Failure Feelings FAQs
1. What can you say to someone who feels like a failure?
Responding with “things will get better” does not help someone who feels like a failure feel better. Instead, listen to their concerns and ask leading questions. Don’t try to offer help or advice—unless they ask. Just be there and support them.
2. How does failure make you feel?
Feeling like a failure is like being in the pit of despair with feelings of insufficiency. It is heavy knots in your tummy and feeling hurt and insecure. It’s the inability to see even a speck of light. However, you are not a failure. When you try, you will eventually succeed.
Redefining Failure as Growth
Feeling like a failure manifests as depression and sadness. You feel weak, small, sad, angry, and not good enough.
These feelings are normal, and everyone feels like a failure at some point in their life, but you can overcome this. However, you should also note when you feel inadequate for longer periods of time and then seek the help of a mental healthcare professional.
Remember, feeling like a failure inhibits you from taking a step out of your comfort zone. It stops you from trying or taking on a seemingly challenging task and, ultimately, stops you from succeeding.
To overcome your failure fears:
- Take responsibility for your failure
- Change negative self-talk into positive self-talk
- Practice self-kindness
- Ask what you can learn from your failures
- Discard unhealthy coping mechanism and instead practice healthy ones
- Turn failures into goals
- Focus on the now and make a plan
Are you ready to overcome your fear of failure and to start believing in yourself? Take one small step … then the next. Soon, you will succeed and fear no more!