Yousuf Raza – The Stigmatization of Failure
AI: Summary ©
The importance of recognizing and embracing one's own worth in order to grow out of difficult situations is emphasized. cognitive distortions can cause people to overestimate their worth and become exaggerated, and it is crucial to acknowledge and identify these thoughts and emotions to avoid failure. A focus on validating one's own thoughts and emotions is key to avoiding failure, and success is a part of the process. Acquiring a more reassuring assessment and dealing with the situation is advised.
AI: Summary ©
I feel like I'm not good enough for
anyone, not even for myself.
I failed myself.
I feel like I shouldn't meet anyone.
I just wanted to be alone, laying in
my bed, don't talk to anyone.
I have failed some subjects in my last
semester.
For the first time in my life, I
had a very good academic record before that,
but I'm not even good in them.
I don't know why I can't help it.
Things are getting worse day by day.
Okay, so that's that little voice in our
heads that I was telling you about, that
was holding me back from doing this.
This is that voice becoming very, very exaggerated.
This is that voice taking more control or
being given more control than it deserves.
So what is good about this little narrative
is that you're being able to identify it,
that you're being able to say, you know
what, I feel this way.
It doesn't necessarily have to be true.
And that is fundamental to dealing with ourselves.
Reality or truth about ourselves, about the world,
about the people that we're dealing with, about
the future, it does not have to be
exactly as we feel it.
Our feeling, or our thoughts for that matter,
are not 100% reliable truth.
So if I feel it, it is.
No, that's not a, because you look at
this narrative and already you're doubting that.
You're being able, you're performing the first step
necessary in growing out of this situation, which
is self-detachment.
That it is you looking at yourself as
a third person and commenting, okay, I am
feeling this.
Can't be right.
It wasn't this way before.
And that's just the first step.
The second step will be okay, fine.
I feel this way.
It's not true.
And then there's reasons for why it's not
true.
It's an exaggeration.
These are called cognitive distortions.
Our colleagues who specialize in cognitive behavioral therapy,
they would tell you more about this.
These are cognitive distortions, incorrect thinking habits.
Let's call them that.
And what is common to most, it's very
interesting to search what different type of distortions
there are there.
It's a very informative and it'll help you
understand yourself better if you search them and
try to get an understanding of yourself in
there.
But one thing that's common to all of
them, or most of them at least, it's
absolutization.
What do I mean by that?
That most of these thoughts, most of these
distortions, they come at you with this everything,
this all or nothing kind of an attitude.
I'm completely useless.
I don't want to meet anyone.
I don't want to see anyone.
I'm not good enough, even for myself.
So you see these hyperbolic terms being used,
these absolutist terminologies coming in.
Those of you who've gotten any instructions on
how to answer MCQs properly, the good MCQs
that are made, know that those MCQs that
are absolutes, that use absolutes, are almost always
not the right answer.
So this applies to these thoughts as well.
I am going to judge the validity of
my thoughts and feelings if those thoughts and
feelings are coming at me with these markers
of absoluteness.
Then I know that that little voice in
my head, those little demons inside of me
that want to hold me back, that want
to see me fail, that don't want to
let me grow, it's from there.
It's sourced in there.
And this is something that is consistent with
psychoanalytic thinking.
The psychoanalytic school within psychology that it identifies
within human beings these multiple dimensions, these almost
sub-personalities that instigate negativity, that hold us
back, that come in the form of thoughts
and emotions that we feel as our own.
But as soon as you're being able to
see them as third person, you're growing, you're
maturing already.
The next step would be, okay, is this
true or is it false?
I see absolutization there.
I see that all or none principle applying
there.
I see exaggerations there.
Equally important is to note that they're not
always entirely incorrect, that these thoughts have some
basis, some evidence in reality, which they exaggerate,
but they're not completely false.
Otherwise, they wouldn't hold.
Otherwise, they wouldn't hold.
So what is for me to do is
to be able to identify from these thoughts,
the truth, and then find out what is
actionizable.
That's a term I came up with.
Well, how can I act to improve from
that truth that that thought is giving?
So for example, I failed a couple of
subjects in that semester.
That part is true.
But for me to draw from that, that
I'm a complete failure, that's not true.
If I remember correctly, this question came from
a medical student.
If you're a medical student, that means you're
pretty smart.
You're pretty intelligent.
You made it all the way to med
school, didn't you?
Right?
So if failing a couple of subjects is
telling you that you're not good enough at
all, and you're not intelligent, and the cognitive
distortion will say, all of what happened before
that was a fluke.
You just did it.
That was luck.
No.
How does that make sense?
Evidence in your own life tells you that
this is an exaggeration.
This is false.
Yes, that failure did take place.
How do I learn from that failure?
And another problem, and this is another one
of those cultural sicknesses, that as a culture,
most of us, we look towards failure.
Failure is stigmatized so much.
We've made failure, we've horrified it so much.
We've demonized it so much that it's just
one of the most frightening things ever.
Whereas there is no success without failure.
We don't get it right always.
And if we're not able to contend with
failure, we will not be able to progress
on the path of success.
It is a part of the process.
Right?
So coming to terms with failure, the concept
of it, the phenomena of it, is so
important.
And one of the reasons why we can't
come to terms with it, because we have
some very arrogant conceptions of ourselves, i.e.
we consider ourselves to have reached the pinnacle
and climax of greatness and success and intelligence
without having struggled through the process.
That's a bigger problem.
Not saying that the person putting this question
up is suffering from that.
Not at all.
Just putting a generalized statement out there for
something that we need to consider.
Right?
So that said, another thing we need to
be wary of is that this pattern is
symbolic of a depressive thought process.
There may be a possibility of a depression
behind this that is already developed or is
in the process of developing.
So I would recommend getting a more detailed
assessment and dealing with this situation as soon
as possible before it worsens, as you did
say towards the end, that it is worsening
day by day.
I would recommend getting professional help from whatever
I could tell from this little passage that
you sent.