7 Simple Mistakes You’re Making When Your Dreams Fail

1. You aren’t getting back up and trying again. If you really want something, it’s silly to quit after your first failure. It can take years (or even decades) to grow good enough to succeed at something. The one thing all successful people have in common is that they never give up on themselves. They are resilient. They keep trying. They don’t let anything or anyone talk them out of their dreams.

2. You aren’t actually learning from your mistakes. Although trying again is a good thing overall, it’s dangerous if you try again too soon. If you made a mistake, then you should take the time to reflect on it and learn from it. Your past is a tool. Your experience is an asset. Make sure you aren’t so starved for success that you forget to take the time to process your failure and figure out what you did wrong originally.

3. You’re blaming outside forces for what went wrong. You need to take responsibility for your actions if you want to grow. You can’t start blaming all of the people around you, the weather, the traffic, and whatever else pops into your mind. You need to accept that it’s possible you did something wrong — but that’s a good thing. That means you can do something in the future to fix it.

4. You’re only blaming yourself for what went wrong. There’s a difference between taking responsibility for your actions and completely beating yourself up over every little thing. Although you might’ve made a mistake, you might’ve done your absolute best. You have to understand that life is unpredictable. You could be amazing in your field, but the timing could’ve been wrong. Today just might not have been your day.

5. You get mad at the world because you feel like you deserved to succeed. Even though your dreams mean a lot to you, even though you want this so badly, that doesn’t mean anything is going to be handed to you. Life is unfair. If you want something, you’re going to have to keep working hard. Let your anger fuel you to succeed instead of letting it convince you to stop trying because it’s pointless anyway.

6. You make enemies with your competition instead of learning from them. You don’t have to compare yourself to other people in your field. You don’t have to hate them because they reached success earlier than you. You should celebrate their successes the way you hope others celebrate yours in the future. Besides, you might be able to learn something from them. They might teach you some valuable lessons.

7. You’re acting like this one failure means you’re a failure overall. You can’t shut down the second something goes wrong. You can’t let yourself believe that you’re a complete failure and you can’t do anything right. Even though you have doubts about yourself, you have to learn to believe in yourself. You have to recognize you have what it takes, and hope that other people will realize it someday, too.