How Failure Shame Can Impact You
Failure shame is a deep and often paralyzing feeling when people see themselves as fundamentally flawed because they cannot meet their or society's standards. This essay examines what failure shame is, why it happens, and how it affects different parts of people's lives.
What is Failure Shame?
Feeling like a failure is when you are hard on yourself and think your mistakes show something is wrong with you. (Shame, 2024) Shame is different from guilt because guilt is about feeling bad for something specific you did, while shame is about feeling like you are not good enough. (Shame, 2024) Feeling like you are not good enough can make you see everything through a negative lens, which can hold you back (Shame, 2024).
Psychological Reasons Why Failure Makes Us Feel Ashamed
Shame can come from different experiences where people feel like they are not meeting their standards or the expectations of others. This feeling is different from embarrassment. Embarrassment usually comes from minor social slip-ups and does not make you feel bad about yourself. Feeling ashamed might have helped our early ancestors stick together and follow the rules, which could have helped them survive in the long run (Shame, 2024).
Impacts of Failure Shame on Individuals
Emotional and Mental Health
Failing can mess with a person's emotions and mental health. It can make you feel angry, down, and anxious (Shame, 2024). Continuously feeling ashamed can make you highly self-critical and cause ongoing emotional pain, which can seriously affect your overall happiness and well-being (Shame, 2024).
Also, people who feel ashamed are more likely to act in unhealthy ways, like isolating themselves and being resistant, which worsens their emotional state (Tangney & Dearing, 2002).
Learning and Self-Regulation
Studies show that feeling ashamed can make learning and controlling your behavior harder. For example, easily embarrassed students tend to feel more shame when they make mistakes, making it challenging to learn and stay in control (Sullins et al., 2024). In the workplace, feeling ashamed of failure can stop employees from learning from their mistakes. It can make them less open to feedback and growth (Wang et al., 2021).
Social Relationships
Failure shame can also affect your social life. It can make people judge you, get mad at you, and act passive-aggressively, causing trust and closeness to deteriorate over time (Shame, 2024). However, sometimes, feeling embarrassed in front of others makes people want to do good things to regain their respect in the group (Li & Wang, 2022).
Coping Mechanisms
Dealing with failure shame often means being kind to yourself and having a positive attitude towards growth. It is all about being understanding and gentle with yourself instead of hard on yourself (Coping with Failure, 2021). A growth mindset means seeing failures as chances to learn and grow rather than as judgments of your value (Coping with Failure, 2021).
Also, getting some help from therapy can assist people in recognizing and dealing with their feelings of shame. This help can lead to a stronger sense of self-worth and better emotional handling (Shame, 2024).
Failure and shame are strong feelings that can affect many parts of your life, like how you feel, learn, and interact with others. Understanding what causes shame and how it can affect you is essential so you can figure out better ways to deal with it and have a kinder, more positive attitude towards yourself. By dealing with the reasons for your shame and being kinder to yourself, you can reduce its harmful effects and live a more satisfying life.
Citations
Shame. Psychology Today. (2024). https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/shame
Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and Guilt. New York: Guilford Press. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/2/138#
Sullins, J., Turner, J., Kim, J., & Barber, S. (2024). Investigating the Impacts of Shame-Proneness on Students' State Shame, Self-Regulation, and Learning. Education Sciences, 14(2), 138. https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/2/138#
Wang, W., Song, S., Wang, J., Liu, Q., Huang, L., & Chen, X. (2021). Shame on you! When and why failure-induced shame impedes employees' learning from failure in the Chinese context. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 725277. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.725277
Li, S., & Wang, L. (2022). The effect of shame on prosocial behavior tendency toward a stranger. BMC Psychology, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-01021-1
Coping with failure. (2021, February 3). Counselling & Psychological Services. https://services.unimelb.edu.au/counsel/resources/study-related-issues/coping-with-failure#
