Summary

The article discusses strategies for overcoming feelings of failure by learning from mistakes, persisting through challenges, and maintaining a positive mindset, inspired by Michael Jordan's perspective on failure as a stepping stone to success.

Abstract

The web content titled "How to Overcome and Obliterate Woeful Feelings of Failure" emphasizes the inevitability of failure in life and the importance of embracing it as a learning opportunity. Drawing on a quote from Michael Jordan, the article highlights that even highly successful individuals, such as NBA players, experience failure. It suggests that instead of succumbing to pressure or self-doubt, individuals should acknowledge their mistakes, use phrases like "I'm learning today" to frame errors as growth experiences, and avoid quitting. The author shares personal anecdotes, including a mistake while changing a car's oil filter, to illustrate the value of learning from failures. The article concludes by encouraging readers to strive to be kind and intelligent, using failures as lessons to prevent others from making the same mistakes.

Opinions

The author believes that everyone, regardless of their field, learns from past mistakes and that failure is an integral part of the success process.
Self-imposed pressure should not deter one from pursuing their dreams, as even iconic figures like Michael Jordan faced significant pressure and failure.
Blaming others for personal failures is common but unproductive; instead, taking responsibility and learning from the experience is key.
The author promotes the idea of using the phrase "I'm learning today" to acknowledge mistakes without harsh self-judgment.
The article suggests that everyone has both "an idiot" and "a genius" within them, implying that people are complex and capable of both mistakes and great achievements.
Quitting is seen as the true failure, whereas persistence is advocated, aligning with the idea that anyone is capable of achieving anything if they do not give up.
The author reflects on a personal regret of quitting a tennis camp, suggesting that had they persevered, they might have gained valuable lessons and fulfilled their commitments.
The conclusion of the article emphasizes the importance of acting with kindness and intelligence, leveraging failures as tools for personal growth and to aid others.

How to Overcome and Obliterate Woeful Feelings of Failure.

Do you feel like giving up? Do you sometimes just want everything to go back to the way it was before?

Michael Jordan once said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

We all go through hard times.

We all miss our game winning shots sometimes.

I remember when I was a teacher I made all kinds of mistakes when I was teaching kids how to solve math problems. I am very competent in math, but even the best make mistakes some of the time.

If Michael Jordan is allowed to make the kinds of mistakes he talks about in his quote, then I’m allowed to make mistakes too.

If what’s stopping you from chasing your dreams is the amount of pressure you feel from yourself or the people around you, just remember that no matter what kind of pressure you’re feeling, it’s probably not as much pressure as Michael Jordan felt when he was trusted to make those game-winning shots.

Playing in the NBA sounds like anybody’s dream life, but even NBA players have times that are just terrible.

Nobody wants to be the hero that everyone is counting on but when the chips are down you drop the ball and your team does not win the game.

Importantly, in the last sentence of his quote, Michael Jordan uses the word “why” when he says, “and that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan attributes his success to his failure. Professionals of all fields know that the only way they learned to do certain things the right way is by screwing them up in the past.

What to do when you fail.

It is not a matter of if you will fail but rather a matter of when you will fail.

When you to fail, what do you do? It is very common to blame other people or blame our own situation for whatever is going wrong in our life.

We can come up with reasons that we can’t do something.

Something that I like to do with my family when I make mistakes, is to use the phrase, “I’m learning today.” I use this phrase to let my family know that I’m an idiot.

The truth is, I think everybody is an idiot.

We all do stupid things sometimes, yet we all do smart things sometimes.

I think everybody has an idiot inside of them and also a genius inside of them.

This thought helps me from using mass labels. Instead of saying something like, “that guy’s a jerk,” I try to say things like, “He is acting like a jerk right now.”

This helps me remember that even though someone is acting like a jerk right now, that does not mean that they are always acting like a jerk.

A friend of mine was teaching me about how to change the oil in a car. He told me that around the car’s filter for the oil there is this rubber gasket. To understand what I mean, this video frame shows the rubber gasket my friend is talking about.

This rubber gasket is responsible for making the liquid tight seal so that the oil flows through the filter and stays in the liquid tight system rather than leaking out.

One time this friend of mine took the oil filter out to replace it but the rubber gasket stayed behind in the chamber and when he installed the new oil filter, it came with a brand new gasket. He put this oil filter in with a new gasket while leaving the old gasket in there.

Having two gaskets in there really screwed things up.

When he started the car, the oil started cycling through the engine and it leaked all over the inside of the garage and it took him hours to clean it up.

Instead of failing and quitting and going on to give his car to garages so they can change the oil for him, he decided to use this moment as a pivotal learning experience in his oil changing career.

From that day on, he decided that when he took the oil filter out to replace it he would make sure that the rubber gasket came with it twice. He would double-check every time to make sure that the gasket came out so that he would not have the same experience again.

Today he still changes his own oil, and he changes oil for some of his family members too.

This way he saves time and money, and he knows that the job is done right.

You only truly fail when you quit.

If something is difficult for you at first and you decide it just isn’t for you, or you just aren’t cut out for it, you are quitting. Psychology Today recommends never giving up.

You need to know that you are capable of anything that anyone else is capable of. In fact, you’re capable of even more because you have things that those other people have not.

Nobody has the same mindset as you because you have seen things others have not. Nobody will ever know everything that you know.

When I was in high school, I was supposed to coach this tennis camp for my coach. Me and a few other guys were going to help out our coach in exchange for private tennis lessons. The coach was supposed to work with us after the camp was over and give us private lessons to help us improve our tennis game.

Halfway through the camp, our coach reminded us that lessons would actually be given by a different coach, someone who was not as good at tennis as he was. It made me really mad and I decided to quit the tennis camp.

I was not sacrificing anything serious to be at the tennis camp. It was summer time, and I did not have a lot going on. I just wanted to stay home and play video games really.

I regret quitting that tennis camp because I know I could have helped those kids and I would have upheld my end of the bargain.

Had I done a good job, the coach may have changed his mind. I could have talked to him about it later. I could have brought it up with my parents. Anything.

But I was coming to court with dirty hands so to speak. Now I had not upheld my end of the bargain, so why should the coach uphold his.

I would stick by what I did if I had made the decision to do something important or valuable with my time instead of work for someone who wasn’t going to pay me fairly, but like I said, I was just going to play video games with my time.

I feel like I really failed myself and those kids at the tennis camp. If I could go back and redo things, I would have stuck it out and maybe that would have gotten me my tennis lessons after all.

Conclusion

The takeaway here is to try to act as much like a genius and a kind person as you can. Everyone, including yourself, likes you better when you’re kind.

You are also way more helpful to yourself and others when you’re a genius instead of an idiot. We can use our failures as learning experiences and even use them to help otters not make the mistakes we have made.