IIT Delhi: The effect of repeated failures on the self

Following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): In this age of competition, we try very hard for various types of exams, and sometimes it is possible that we come very close but may still end up on the losing side. If that keeps continuing, then won’t the repeated failures hamper our self-confidence? If they do, then how to deal with them?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Dealing with repeated failures is not a problem provided you are failing at something worthwhile. The more important question is, what are you failing at? Equally, the more important question is, what are you succeeding at? We just say, “I am successful” or “I am a failure” — why don’t we complete the description? What exactly are we successful at? What have we obtained? Or is it so that we didn’t bother to go deeply into that and we just went by the commonly, socially accepted definitions of success and failure?

Do what is worth doing and then failure would not mean so much to you. Equally, success too will not mean so much to you. It is the doing that will matter. You will say, “I am grateful I am getting to do what is worth doing. Success or failure depends on a thousand factors, some internal, some external, and I have no handle over all those factors. I may succeed or I may fail; I may…