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Albert and I used to be the best of friends. I knew him since grade school and because we were neighbors, we always had reasons to spend time together like working on our assignments and projects, playing during semester breaks and participating in some of our community events.
So, you can’t really blame me for falling in love with him. I’ve watched a lot of romantic movies so I’ve learned that this type of love story doesn’t really work out, you know, falling-for-your-best-friend-and-best-friend-falls-for-another-girl story. So, I tried to ignore and hide my feelings for more than a decade.
Until one summer, I didn’t know what got into me but I sent him a letter containing everything that I wanted to say and then locked myself in my room for a whole day. I wasn’t expecting him to show up outside my house and tell me that he felt the same way too, but at least, I was hoping he would call me or send me a text message.
A whole day had passed and there was no reaction from Albert. I felt turned down and totally rejected. I didn’t hear from him until a week later. He brought me some donuts (yes, comfort food) and then returned a book that he borrowed from me a long time ago. I thought he wouldn’t discuss the topic of my letter, but he did.
And though I appreciated his gentleness in handling the situation, it didn’t change the fact that his feeling wasn’t mutual. I thought to myself that love had failed me and that I had failed myself for losing the ultimate best friend in the world.
Things were never the same again after that. The pain of being friend-zoned sucks. It took me an ocean of tears and several sleepless nights before I decided to forget him and move on.
Failure, in whatever form, can be very devastating. It can really crush a spirit and devastate you to the core, but life must go on. No matter how many failures we experience, the world will never stop turning. So, we have to bounce back, regain our life and live to be happy again.
So, here are some tips to keep a positive mindset whenever you experience downfalls in your life.
Grow a Stronger Heart By Learning From Your Mistakes
To learn from failure, you should first be able to admit to yourself the things that you did wrong. It is impossible to see the opportunities your experience presents and take the lessons with you if you are constantly blaming others and not willing to take accountability of your actions.
Never close yourself off or choose to shut down. Instead, learn to open up your heart even when you’re in pain, share your fears and your insecurities. Spot your shortcomings; analyze your situation and figure out your mistakes so that you can rebuild your walls and make them stronger and sturdier.
Build Positive Self-Talk
Self-talk is not limited to your internal dialogue, it also includes your conversation with others and the way you project or interpret your life. To talk to yourself responsibly, you need to make your thoughts work for you by trusting yourself and using an empowering perspective.
And to help you embody encouraging statements and make them part of your daily life, check this out – “Incantations: Why I’m Spending 10 Minutes A Day Yelling to Myself.”
This practice may be uncomfortable at first, but when you do it repeatedly with force and intensity, it could surely optimize your mentality and feelings about yourself and your life in general.
Design a Plan to Become Better
Creating a detailed personal development plan gives you direction and satisfaction, motivates you to do better all the time and helps you lessen your frustrations in life. Without it, you’re prone to wasting your time on unimportant things until you get lost and confused about what you want to do and where you want to be.
Planning is perhaps one of the reasons why mentally strong people have a better sense of control over their life. They could easily bounce back from setbacks because they take them as an opportunity to gather more knowledge and sharpen their skills. And given that they are armed with more wisdom, they could come back with a clearer vision of their future and a better strategy to address their problems.
Get Emotional Support
Asking for help is a sign of strength and humility because it takes a lot of courage to confront your fears and face your insecurities. And while it’s good to be independent, you have to realize that there are certain things in this life that you can’t possibly do on your own like building relationships.
In this video, Steven Izen, founder and CEO of lifestyle brand Lokai, talks about how he handled a company setback by relying on his team and the people around him.
Sometimes, you have to let your guard down and trust the people around you so that you can build good connections, be more productive and help yourself ease your burdens.
Perspective is everything, however, it’s one of the most difficult things to change. I’ve had many situations in life which I perceived wrongly and ended up causing unnecessary grief to myself. This is definitely a work-in-progress for me.
I know for a fact that my life changed for the better at the time when I decided to shift my perspective of the world. I used to see things as being a lot worse than they actually were. I know it’s something that I will continually have to do if I want to live a happy life.
I trust my best friends to show me other point of views when I’m too biased to think alone. I also give them insights once in a while. In the process, we all learn how to expand our views. Everyone is struggling. We’re definitely not alone.
Thumbs up for your bravery to confess to your friend. I tell myself that I would regret it much more if I didn’t choose what I just did. It doesn’t always result in happiness, but I know I tried. It’s all a good lesson in the end, so it’s worth the pain.
Confessing your feelings was so courageous of you and I guess this is normally the hardest part for a woman because most of the time, reciprocity doesn’t necessarily occur. I agree that emotional support is really important and it is never a sign of weakness.
Knowing where you are going in life is pivotal in getting there. Planning is so essential because without it you are effectually going nowhere, and living an aimless life.
I want to also mention that responding to help is as important as reaching out. I had a friend who asked for help, but she was actually still in denial that she refused my suggestions. That sounds like a recipe to another failure in the future.
Indeed, everyone has their fair share of struggles and it makes sense to always accommodate their points of view. It is beneficial to incorporate other people’s views when making decisions.