INTJ on Failure

[DeafEars]

I dont know if theres already an existing topic about failure...(there might be, but I couldn't find it)

Anyhow, how do you guys take failures?.. from relationships, career, plans , and studies... I think I have difficulties dealing with failures.. its probably because I tend to focus on things too much... that when it fails I have nothing else to do, and I get stuck with nothing.. :undecided:

[TheLastMohican]

I have not had many failures; I am too determined to avoid them to let them happen.

But that says something about how I would deal with failures. If the failure was actually my fault, I would be quite displeased with myself. Other times, I can take disappointments in stride if I realize that it was not in my control. I try to make sure it is under my control if possible, but sometimes it just won't work that way.

I measure myself by my achievements in comparison to my ambitions. I presume it will not be long before I do fail at some big ambition. Then I will find out exactly how I take it.

[DeafEars]

Yeah, I keep on avoiding potential failures too, but i consider avoidance (not trying) as failures. Most of the time I don't try things out if I have a bad feeling that I would fail... and most often it comes with regret for not trying.. the irony of it all.

[Jgib5328]

Here is the original thread..
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[Capt57]

.. its probably because I tend to focus on things too much... that when it fails I have nothing else to do, and I get stuck with nothing.. :undecided:

That is very interesting! It's not just failure it could be losing interest in something or someone that you had intense focus on for some period of time. I once had a goal that I was consumed with. In fact, I had all of these elaborate detailed plans of how I was going to accomplish that goal. What I was completely wrong about was how I thought I might feel about that goal or accomplishment one or two or three years from now. Humans are awful at predicting how we are going to feel in the future...the following link explains why.

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Things change and sometimes you are left holding an empty bag. It can be hard to muster up enthusiasm for anything in these "in between" periods. The worst thing you can do is become self destructive...which I have done. Beating yourself up and over analyzing your failures come natural for INTJs. We put so much effort and work into that "one thing" that when it does not work out or loses its appeal we feel cheated. Why try again if the same thing might happen?

The same thing might happen but who cares! No matter what you accomplish you are going to die in the same way as beggars and presidents and emperors of Rome and big shots in Sumeria...no brain function. In 200 years no one will care who you are or about any goal you had. The question is why do having goals make people happy or more content. The answer is the experience of flow. The psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in his book flow lays out the basics of this state of mind...this is what you need:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities).
2. Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. People become absorbed in their activity, and focus of awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself, action awareness merging (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975. p.72).

The focus of our attention is what makes us feel good. It keeps us in the moment, in the now. Not in some fictional future or past that only exists in your head anyway. So pick a goal, like running five miles and start today. That is better then brooding and unfocused attention. Sorry for the long post but I'm partially convincing myself of these things.:laugh:

[Ace1337]

I try to avoid failure in any way I can and I am pretty successful at it, but when I fail at something big, it almost seems impossible to me because INTJs are so aware of their weaknesses and strengths. How could I fail? I analyze everything and I often go way back to seek what other problem or what other weakness of mine caused the failure.

[pallasathena]

I heard someone say that instead of "failure", we need to say "learning experience". OK, so whatever it was didn't work. What lesson did you learn from it? You can take most any negative experience and re-frame it. Look at Thomas Edison. Didn't it take him 10,000 attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb? He never thought of himself as a failure. He just found 9,999 things that didn't work, that's all. :idea: Stop being so hard on yourself. ;)

[Moriarty]

Remember, kids: trying is the first step of failure.

[TheLastMohican]

Remember, kids: trying is the first step of failure.

So now who are we supposed to be listening to here?

[Caramel]

Remember, kids: trying is the first step of failure.

Do or do not. There is no try. ;)

[Moriarty]

Homer Simpson. It's his quote.

[malefide]

I haven't experienced many failures. I am extremely determined and try to prevent a lack of success in all areas. The times I have had relatively minor setbacks have really bothered me. It is something that I obsess about--not just failure, but even lesser degrees of success. If I don't achieve the highest thing that I think I am capable of it, it leaves me feeling inadequate or like I am wasting my potential, time, or efforts. It is a part of my perfectionism. It probably isn't very healthy.

[Moriarty]

Do or do not. There is no try. ;)

Help you, I can. Yesss.

[TheLastMohican]

Homer Simpson. It's his quote.

Do you agree with the wise sage that is Homer?





TheLastMohican added to this post, 0 minutes and 46 seconds later...

Help you, I can. Yesss.

Train him I cannot! No patience the boy has!

[cda]

To me it depends on the circumstances of the failure. If something didnt work out because somebody was late, didn't pull their weight, etc. etc. I usually get extremely annoyed at that person and have no qualms about throwing them under the bus and see if I can salvage whats left over.

If I failed because of myself, such as a misinterpretation, miscalculation I feel humiliated. If I failed because I achieved the objective but the rules are one two and three, not two one and three. I get pissed off.

[Jenny Penny]

I think getting through a "failure" or otherwise trying situation is a character-building experience. Once you believe in your own ability to get back up on your feet and try again, the next failure won't seem as devastating.

I used to become extremely negative and hateful towards myself when I would not meet whatever standards were set, by myself or others. Getting older and wiser is amazing in that you start to cut yourself a bit more slack and see yourself in perspective to all the other people out there who don't even try or care about anything.

[bluenote]

I cut others more slack than I do myself. I am so rigid, so controlled, so methodical and just downright determined to succeed that the one time I actually failed at something I really and truly couldn’t handle it well. This wasn’t like a subtle “there’s a disturbance in the force” scenario more like someone annihilated my DeathStar. I just couldn’t cope. When you have a plan for every eventuality except failure you feel like your whole world entered into freefall. Thankfully I’m learning to cut myself some slack and not be too rigid about my goals.

[sriv]

You have to be hard on yourself though or one will never get anything done well. Not so hard that you go emo, but enough that you admonish yourself for not meeting expectations and making sure you learn from your mistakes.

[Haphazard]

I have a concept of time and events that everything's a flow of events rather than one thing being a 'failure' and a 'success' so I can't even think of my last 'failure'. Life keeps moving, sometimes faster than I can keep up.

When something fails, I guess I just get back up. Usually I don't worry about it too much and just learn from it afterwards, that is unless I keep having to deal with the consequences for a long time after. If I'm working on something on my own, my failures don't tend to bother me so much because they're my failures and mine alone. My mood equilibrium usually evens out pretty quickly and I just go on. When I continuously get reminded of the failure, and I somehow become perceived as less trustworthy or less competent because of it, I end up getting pretty pissed off because I know what made the failure happen and I know how to prevent it. However, there's usually never a chance to prove myself again because I don't fail again, and that one incident just sticks in their minds...

[suzyk]

I fail a lot. I may be a perfectionist, but since I grew up with failing in subjects like math, I don't really mind it. Not trying to sound emo. It's quite ironic, I hate true perfection yet I try to be so perfect in everything... I focus on the stupid, small and unimportant details which lead me to my failure.

[darkkodiak]

Well, failure to me is something I try to avoid as best as I can. However, I'm not perfect so I am prone to fail and I do fail a lot but I don't view failure as a negative thing, instead I see it as a learning experience. To me, when I fail, I learn one more way of NOT doing something haha.

[PRBori]

I avoid FAILURE at all cost...

For such I always develop a plan. For this year I have set my goals and the step-by-step method to take in order to achieve them. So far I'm ahead of the game with my projected income way ahead of it's time... so the rest of the plans with the exception of vacation time or time off for me is on target.

If for any reason I don't reach my goals I never give up, never look back, I just re-adjust them as time goes.

If there is a bump along the way, I use it as a learning tool to make sure it doesn't happen again, but I don't see it as a failure.. for if I did, my self-esteem will be low and the rest of my goals will go down the drain.. therefore, that's not an option.

Being focus on what I want is extremely important... although I try to be a perfectionist that's not always feasible....

So my advice to those of you who look down everytime you hit a bump or what's consider by many "FAILURE" don't hit yourself on it... keep on focus on what you want of life and keep up with the other goals you have...

If there is a WILL there is ALWAYS a WAY to SUCEED... Is just a matter of planning, have a clear view of the goals, have a clear view of the steps, and always have Plan B & C to fall upon when a bump is hit...

[airshiplogic]

Failure generally differs from person to person.

I think it's a compulsion, no, make it an obsession to succeed. I'll probably do it (if the pros outweigh the cons) by the 'ends justify means' method. School for me is generally alright and I ensure that I do not fail anything that matters. If I fail something, I'll obsess over it and think of the many factors that could have contributed to that failure and go lengths to pull my projects (even after graded) back to an A. The worst thing is to watch others succeed and you're in a pit hole of darkness.

[Follow]

I disagree with there "always" being a way to succeed, that's just not the case. I also disagree with sugar coating the word "failure" into "learning experience" or whatever else. Sure, we fail and we learn from it to try to avoid that failure again, but it isn't a learning experience, it's still a failure with some kind of value from lessons it might teach.

There are many times where there are circumstances beyond our control that cause our failure. Here is an example of just such circumstances. I worked for an upstart business that was capital starved. They were so capital starved in fact that they couldn't even afford to pay their employees, but the business had a VERY large profit margin if we could get it to run. I did everything I could to make that business work (I was not the president), I got practically everything the company needed to run for free. I got commercial time for free, I got them free rent for a building, I got them contracts, I got them supplies, and I got everything at no cost to the company. The company still failed because the people in higher positions were idiots and the circle of like 3-4 of them were trying to rob each other blind and breaking laws to do it. In the end, despite my best efforts and a fairly large amount of control in the company, it failed. I don't necessarily consider this a personal failure, but it was a failure none the less.

I have had other times where circumstances beyond my control have caused a failure as well, like partners pulling the plug on me for no logical reason, or an impossibility of supply to meet any demand, etc. I've had other times where it was squarely my fault that the failure occurred, like failing to find the funding to go to law school. Such is life.

Just accept the failures and move on. Each new type of failure will get you down, like a recent relationship failure got me down. I think the trick is to remember that it's happened before and will probably happen again, because as much as we INTJs like to think we are super human, we still have a learning curve. Even people we look down on as dumb for whatever reason might possess some knowledge that we don't, specialists in their field who know how to avoid failure in that field. Don't let it get you down and don't avoid it, march right into everything doing the best you can and if you fail, remember next time what caused it and try to look into that pothole before you begin if you try again.

I'm no great success myself now, but I do know that I've armed myself with a great deal of knowledge throughout my years and great success can't hide from me for too long. There aren't too many great successes in the world either, there is a reason for it, it's obviously not an easy thing to be. ;)

[SmileyMan]

Failure in my fields of interest gives me a very unpleasant feeling of disappointment about myself. It is as if a huge weight is placed upon my chest. I feel anxious and out of energy. I can't think of any other things than why I failed and how can I improve myself to prevent such failures in the future. It is the worst feeling I know, and it will, unfortunately, not go away until I experience another success.

[Mozzes]

I generally agree with the thought that if you're not failing from time to time then you need more ambitious goals.

Whenever I fail at something I just do what I would hope most people do - forget about it and try harder. Though this is obviously not a popular sentiment in this thread. A difference in type, perhaps?

[Kinzzey]

Usually, I put everything in place, but if my plans didn't get on its course. My interest on that suddenly went below zero and thats how I get failures!

Whenever I get failures, usually I don't go back to fix it anymore, I'll think of another door that can be unlocked to save me from self destruction. XD

[mkay]

From an ENTP: I won't attempt things without a chance of failing. (Because I consider it a waste of time to attempt something with so little room for me to stretch and learn.) I set my own goals. When I fail according to my terms (usually higher than what others, like bosses, set for me), I analyze why I failed and how I could've done better. I learn what I can and don't spend time beating myself up about failing (I would do that only if I thought there was a logical reason to do that). But I don't try to forget failures; they can be useful to apply to new situations, I've found. ... I've also found that I usually can use failure to my advantage, by acknowledging it to peers and bosses, for instance. People generally appreciate when you acknowledge mistakes.

[notoppings]

Failure is what you make of it. You can allow it to stop you from trying again or you can use it as a tool to improve your performance. I have failed in a few business ventures but have walked away from them with no remorse or guilt. I simply learned to be more self reliant. I thrive on the challenge of a new venture and can't see myself failing but odds are things out of my control (economy, job market etc.) will have an adverse effect on my new ventures, but still I'll try again.

When I fail I try to remember people like D. Trump who failed several times before he reached his level of success.

[demvesalius]

This is a quote by Michael Jordan from his book "Driven from Within" that I TRY to live by:

"THERE WAS NEVER ANY FEAR FOR ME, NO FEAR OF FAILURE.

IF I MISS A SHOT, SO WHAT?

Maybe even a shot that could have won a game. I can deal with that. If I don't miss the shot, then I don't miss it - we win. I can rationalize the fact that there are only two outcomes: You either make it, or you miss it. I could think that way because I knew I had earned the opportunity to take that shot.

I had put in all the work, not only in that particular game, but in practice every day. If I missed then it wasn't meant to be. That simple. It wasn't because the effort wasn't there. It wasn't because I couldn't make the shot, because I had taken the shot many times in every situation. As soon as the ball went up, there weren't any nerves because I had trained myself for that situation.

I was as prepared as I could possibly have been for that moment. I couldn't go back and practice a little harder. I knew I had done the right things to prepare myself for that situation. One way or another, I knew I was prepared to be successful. Now, if you know you haven't prepared correctly, or you know you haven't worked hard enough, that's when other thoughts and emotions creep into your mind. That's stress. That's fear.

It's the same process for doing anything, anywhere in life no matter how big or small the stage. Whether it's running a corporation, taking a test in the second grade or taking a shot to win a game, at that moment you are the sum total of all the work you have put in, nothing more and nothing less. If you are confident you have done everything possible to prepare yourself, then there is nothing to fear.

THERE'S NO STRESS IN LOSING UNDER THOSE CIRCUMSTANCES.

IT JUST WASN'T MEANT TO BE"

[Follow]

Michael Jordan is an absolutely incredible person. I love seeing what he was able to do and the respect he has as a result.

Definitely the right kind of person to look up to.

[Retz]

I look at being wrong as me now being more right then I was before I had the information that made me wrong. It's one of my only really optimistic ideas.

Relationship wise I don't crave human contact all that much and I can't say I fail in relationships. Which comes from my ability to read people very quickly thus ridding myself of people I would call less then beneficial.

I feel like living social manipulation.

[PRBori]

I disagree with there "always" being a way to succeed, that's just not the case. I also disagree with sugar coating the word "failure" into "learning experience" or whatever else. Sure, we fail and we learn from it to try to avoid that failure again, but it isn't a learning experience, it's still a failure with some kind of value from lessons it might teach.



FAILURE is what you make out of it, but Succeeding is something you should always strive to do. I understand that sometimes people fail for circumstances outside their control; however, those should serve as a way to look back and not make the same mistakes not something that will stop you from focusing on succeeding. Maybe is just me, but to me there is "ALWAYS" a way to succeed. Yes the posibilities of encountering major hits along the way is possible, but when you have a goal in mind and you prepare your plan you should always have a few backup plans to cover up for it.

That said, if there is a WILL there is a WAY. At least that's my personal view on the subject. I could have being a failure if I didn't run away from home at 16 because the environment was not with me but against me, therefore in life you must make decisions that although may sound crazy at times to others, deep deep inside you know they are the best for you and what you want out of life.

Not sure if this is an INTJ trait, but I knew what I wanted out of life since I was a child. I knew that in order to excel at something I had to change the environment and stay focus on what I want it. Right now I'm still working at some things but it will not be far when I do reach ALL my goals. That said a person must be extremely DETERMINED, FOCUS, AMBITIOUS, 3 of which I may be way too much... but that's about the only way you can succeed in life from my point of view.

[TehBeefah]

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

[Chisos]

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!

Spot on!

[AmINot]

Failure, is wisdom in disguise.

[volk]

Failures make you appreciate success more. It also helps you put a bounding box around your abilities so that you get a better understanding of your limits.

[Antares]

I personally find failure a major demotivator and in simpler words, unacceptable. I have unrealistic expectations of myself; beating myself up over simple failures. Possible symptom of OCD.