4 Types of Failure We All Experience

Experiencing failure is an inevitable part of human life; what matters more than failing is how we deal with it.

The most important thing is not that we never fail but that we learn from failure and know how to pick ourselves up when we get knocked down.

I will focus on four common types of failure that almost all of us have experienced and will experience again.

Hopefully, by understanding our failure and how to handle it, we will find ourselves better equipped to deal with it next time it happens.

Keep reading to discover four different types of failure and how we can learn from them.

1. Abject Failure

This is the most personally difficult one.

This type of failure is when people lose something that feels essential to them.

Examples of this could be their health, livelihood, or current level of functioning.

Or when they have done something that caused them to lose the trust and respect of others.

This is a deep failure, a failure that many struggle to recover from.

It’s one that, like it or not, you will experience again, and you can hopefully learn some coping skills from which to bounce back.

If we look at our health, it can be a huge blow to be told that we have some issue that makes us human and delicate.

That our lives will be changed forever and that we need to deal with regularly.

It is likely not the first health issue you will encounter, but it is a defining one.

How you take control of it and move forward will say a lot about how you will meet failures in the future.

The other, the loss of our livelihood or the respect of those we care about, is difficult to deal with but not uncommon.

Most people have been let go from a job for reasons that are or are not their fault.

Most people have made mistakes that have let others down.

While both of these may happen again in the future, we have to learn from them.

What’s most important is how we spring back from them.

2. Glorious Failure

This type of failure is where you give something your all but fail in an epic blaze of glory.

While these failures can feel devastating and rejecting, they are necessary.

Also, if we are the type to aim for the start, it is not the first time we will deal with Glorious Failure.

I hope not.

From every one of these failures come lessons.

They help us build tough skin and enable us to learn from our mistakes.

We can only strengthen ourselves and build bigger and better if we allow ourselves to regroup and learn from it.

I hope this is the type of failure that people experience at least a few times in their lives, as it is the thing that greatness is made from…..

If we allow it to be.

3. Common Failure

This is your average everyday failure, and since none of us are perfect, you will experience it, and you will experience it again.

This is forgetting an appointment or bringing the wrong disk to a presentation.

It forgetting a friend’s birthday or a report was due Friday at noon, not at 3 p.m.

We make These mistakes because we are human beings, and we will make them again.

In this case, we must learn to forgive ourselves and move on.

4. Predicted failure

This is the kind of failure we can count on.

Think of it as the beta test of any new idea we are trying out.

We have our things in place and will see if they work well or if there are “bugs.”

If we have many goals and ideas, we will often experience this type of failure.

The most important thing is how we deal with the failure.

Some people do not have the wherewithal to handle even predicted failure and may not be cut out for swinging for the fences.

Others know this is a normal part of the cycle of creation and growth.

It can be a valuable way to learn how to improve upon projects, themselves, and their ability to adapt.

Which of these four types of failure have you experienced recently?

As I’ve said in this article, we’re all human and fail sometimes.

Have you experienced one of these types of failures recently?

How did you get over it?

Tell us all about it in the comment section!