The most embarrassing and challenging situations in our lives are when we have failed to achieve and accomplish a feat that we so eagerly desired to. While that is true, an even greater problem occurs when we decide to give up hoping and dreaming because of continuous failures in different aspects of our life. It’s one thing for someone to not succeed in any particular thing. Perhaps that was not God’s will for their, or your, life, but if one has been caught up in a continuous pattern of failing, then it’s a challenge to change their mindset completely and start again from scratch.

If you see yourself in a similar situation, here’re a few pointers that will help you get off this train of failure that has been stopping at almost every halt in your life. They have all come out of personal experiences and I hope and pray that it will bless you as well.

1. Stop Enjoying Your Failure

Failure in itself is not enjoyable. However, we look for comforts to enjoy our failure. Some resort to vices like alcohol or porn, which in turn become greater addictions and lead to further failures. Others stick to less harmful vices like games, movies or simply long naps, that still help them enjoy their failures. I used to have this habit of overloading myself with ministry or other work every time I had a disagreement or fight at home or elsewhere. It turned out to be my escape, a comfort strategy, every time I failed. This also caused me to stop wanting to solve the issues and succeed in those areas of my life.

If you have a comfort spot or an escape mechanism that helps you keep your head straight during your failures, get rid of them. It’s OK for your failures to hurt you. It’s perfectly fine to feel disappointed. But it’s not OK to enjoy your failure.

2. Stop Reasoning With Failure

This one’s adopted by the more logical and reasonable people. They try and justify their failures or begin to reason with it. Analysing your failure to find out where you could have done better is a great way to try and overcome it. But defending yourself will stop the failure from increasing the momentum in that desired area of your life.

For example, let’s consider the cause of this person who has been blaming college or professors for the lack of academic success. Now, could failure in academics be a real challenge? Yes, surely. But when you shift the blame on someone/something else, what you are also saying is that unless that changes, my situation will not change!

It really doesn’t matter what others say or what you experience. As long as you are determined to succeed, you can defy logic and all reasoning, thus becoming an overcomer. That is how a man of faith functions. Joshua and Caleb made into history due to their not succumbing to the rationale for failure.

3. Stop Fearing Failure

This one can be a little hard to do, especially after repeated and continuous seasons of failure. And this is not exclusive for those who have a history with failure. Even someone like Job who had it all going well for him, he had the fear that he might lose everything and end up as a failure. I love to quote what Joyce Meyer often says, “Danger is real, but fear is a choice”. I am not expecting to turn you into a naive person who is ignorant of the consequences or the difficulties of the task ahead of you. I am instead hoping that you would not fall for the giant of fear. There is only one solution to overcoming fear, it is to let faith arise in your heart.

Faith wouldn’t come by you reading up on thousands of motivational books or inspirational blogs (even this one). Faith comes when you expose yourself to the Word of God. When you let the living Word talk some God sense into your spirit, you will be filled with faith. Such concrete faith will dispel all fears of future failures.

4. Stop Talking About Failure

Your faith is best expressed in your talks, your conversations and even the language you would use. What you speak is true reflection of the state of your heart. You have to quit talking about your past failures. You have to talk the language of success. And mind you, this is no personal self-help or psychological phenomenon. Bible says that life and death are in the power of your tongue, your words really matter. Do not quit talking, because talking the right things will add a spiritual backbone to your efforts to success, instead of talking negative, which will be like furrowing a trench that will drain your hard efforts.

It might not come easy, but work hard till you eliminate every language and word related to failure from dictionary. Let people around you know that you are a man/woman of success and that you are really bent on achieving what God designed you for.

5. Stop Thinking Like a Failure

Last, and yet the most important factor, is to change the mindset of a failure. Just because you have a history with failures, you do not have to identify yourself as a failure. Starting from how you view yourself, to how you want people around to identify you, view yourself from God’s eyes, and think of yourself the way God would think about you. Bible says, you are more than an overcomer. If that’s who God says you are, and that’s what God believes about you, no amount of failures or history of repeated mistakes should be able to convince you otherwise.

The battle you are fighting is won or lost in your mind. If you have won it in your mind, it doesn’t matter what the actual outcome, you would continue to have the sharp focus and commitment of a victor, instead of the defence and escape mechanisms of a consistent loser.

There is hardly anyone who has not faced defeat in his/her life. However, being caught in a vicious cycle of losing is not normal and cannot be tolerated. And these are some of the few things you would have to overcome before you get locked on to a chain of victories. I pray that God would fill your heart with divine courage and strength for the same.