Menopause has long been a sensitive issue for women, regardless of their societal origins. It is often seen as the end of their sexuality. It is generally anticipated with a great amount of negativity and dread by both women and men. The generational perception has been proliferated by folklore, and perpetuated by the media, misinformation and simple absence of credible information.

Menopause is simply nothing more than a change in the reproductive cycle of women. It is the time when their fertility cycle comes to an end and women no longer experience monthly menstruation. The ancient Greek word “menopause” means “end of monthly cycles.” This most often occurs as early as the mid-40s, as the ovaries begin to produce lower levels of the sex hormones estrogen and progesterone.

Side Effects

It is important for women and men to understand that menopause is a natural stage of life. It is not a disease or disorder to be feared. It is not life threatening. It is simply a process that every woman must experience at some point in their life.

Menopause has a wide variety of physical effects, almost all of them related to the rapid change in the levels of hormones. Not every woman suffers the same effects or the same level of change. It depends entirely on the individual in question. Some of these side effects are hot flashes, night sweats, migraine headaches, vaginal atrophy, producing itching, dryness, watery discharge, urinary urgency. Other unpleasant side effects include joint and muscle pain and tenderness in the breasts, among others. In addition to the physical side effects are the emotional ones. Mood swings can range from extremely irritable to the opposite end of the spectrum. High levels of fatigue are not uncommon, with other possible symptoms including memory loss, depression, anxiety, insomnia, decreased libido, and more.

Fortunately, most of these side effects can be controlled through the use of hormone replacement therapies (HRT) or the increasingly popular natural option bio-identical hormones (BHRT). HRT has its own potential side effects that need to be discussed with your physician before you embark upon any type of treatment. Hormone therapy can help treat osteoporosis and hot flashes, but each woman needs to review her situation with her doctor before determining whether or not embark upon hormone therapy. There are risks involved. Specific drugs used in HRT have been known to increase the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Alzheimer’s. The other option is BHRT, which though undergoing continued studies in the US, has enjoyed excellent feedback in European countries. Whichever choice is made, if either, it is imperative to discuss options with your doctor or alternative medical practitioner before determining whether to undergo hormonal treatment.

Cultural Impact on the Western World

Research has shown that it is mainly Western societies that view menopause as a negative in the life as a woman. It is often seen as a sign of deterioration or decline, and as a time of great emotional stress and family strife. On the flip side, studies have shown that most Asian cultures look at menopause as a time of liberation. There is no more worrying about pregnancy, monthly menstruation, cycles, tampons, pills, cramping and all of the other associated issues that accompany monthly cycles. Thankfully this view has begun to spread in the United States, largely with the help of Dr. Christiane Northrup. She has taken the Asian ideas and promoted them through her books, “The Wisdom of Menopause” and “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom.” It is her belief that menopause is the time of life affirming beauty, liberation, self awareness, and a chance for women to become free of the bonds of cultural ignorance.

A recent study by the University of Copenhagen showed that, in interviews with 24 menopausal women, they had a variety of multifaceted views on aging, and very specifically felt that menopause was integral to the aging process. Out of the 24 women only one had anything negative to say about this new phase. The remainder agreed upon certain positives. They perceive themselves as having become more experienced, competent, wise, and mature, resulting in richer lives full of the requisite wisdom needed to carry them into the future. They also felt that they had gained more freedom; freedom from the monthly cycle, freedom from the menstrual pains and cramps, and freedom from the fear of pregnancy. They also had uniformy expeience a type of liberation or empowerment that better enabled them to allow them to maintain and indeed vocalize their own opinions. They also viewed menopause as a badge of honor, having survived the vicissitudes of life. The overall view of the paper was to discuss the importance of avoiding the negative expectations of age and menopause in society, and instead focus upon the positive aspects of maturity.

This idea is one that Dr. Northrup has been helping to promote throughout America, and it is one for which many women should take notice. Menopause may have certain negative side effects, but these can be addressed, and the positives far outweigh the negatives. The negatives are only temporary at their worst. Hormones eventually balance out after which a woman is left with a more expansive view of her world, a significant newfound freedom, and a fresh perspective on life.

Why, then, are we not happier?  According to a survey by the New Economics Foundation on happiness ranked by nation, residents of the United States, the wealthiest nation in human history, ranks 114th, while Caribbean and South American nations lead in the top ten.  Opportunities for pleasure, achievement, and excitement abound in wealthier nations — but antidepressant drugs and therapies have never been so plentiful, violence and terrorism fill televisions screens and news reports, and the arts and literature everywhere record an anguished search for meaning.

Affluence upon Further Reflection

Can science shed any light on the paradox of outer affluence and inner emptiness?  One of the greatest psychologists of the modern age, Professor B. F. Skinner, was certain that it could.   Addressing this very issue in his last book, Upon Further Reflection, Skinner, Chair of Psychology at Harvard University, winner of the Medal of Freedom, and President of the American Psychological Association, made a close examination of the problem of dissatisfaction and drift in the modern world, advancing views shaped by over sixty years of studying human psychology — views that give every reason for hope.

Behavior-Analytic Perspectives

To understand Skinner’s analysis, it is necessary to understand something of the behavior-analytic mode of psychology that he pioneered.  Striving to put psychology on a par with the harder sciences, behavioral psychologists from the beginning downplayed introspection and theory, and worked to put psychology on a tight basis of observation and measurement.  Subjectivity and emotion in many respects resisted description by such criteria and so behaviorists turned instead to the measurement and study of what was observable in human activity.  Psychology to these researchers became the study of behavior, and over time they observed that human behavior functioned according to extremely clear, albeit occasionally counter-intuitive, rules.

One of the most iron-clad and consistently replicated such observations involved the discovery of what Skinner christened operant conditioning and contingencies of reinforcement.  Operant conditioning referred to research data that showed the behavior of living creatures differed from an earlier explanatory model in which they were portrayed as mechanistic entities governed by stimulus and response, as an earlier generation of behavioral researchers led by Soviet psychologist Ivan Pavlov believed.  Instead, research showed, the actions of living organisms were shaped most profoundly by the consequences of those actions.  Actions followed by certain consequences were more likely to be repeated.  Those consequences were said to reinforce the behavior.  Actions followed by other consequences were likely to diminish and die out.  Those consequences were said to extinguish the behavior.

An organism operated upon its environment — hence the term operant — and the result of that action gave it feedback that shaped its future actions.  If a reinforcing consequence was consistently delivered contingent upon a particular action or activity, that action or activity would persist.  By selectively using reinforcement, the researcher could consistently develop certain behaviors and extinguish others.  The behavior of living creatures could be reliably shaped.

An Analysis of Affluence

How does this theoretical framework explain the apparent paradox of an affluent population experiencing widespread unease?  Skinner in his final work explained it as a rupturing of the contingencies involved.  Instead of robust constructive behaviors being consistently reinforced, an affluent modernity spreads reinforcements lavishly, randomly, and thickly, with the result that behavior itself grows weak.  It is rather like someone who overeats grossly and constantly.  Is it any mystery why that person develops indigestion and loss of appetite?  In modern affluent societies, reinforcements are not merely large in number and easy to access, but no longer contingent upon vivid and passionate behavior.  As a result, such behavior begins to die out.

Skinner, in fact, described five areas of modern life where strong activity and its supportive reinforcement were increasingly drifting apart:

Work

The process of industrialization, Skinner pointed out, created a situation where reinforcement moved farther and farther from the actual process of work.  The craftsman or gardener or artist might enjoy every step of his or her labor, but the introduction of the assembly line and specialization removed the continual stream of immediate and enjoyable feedback in favor of a limited repetition that might pay well but was not in itself reinforcing.  The workers so employed might enjoy the profits but not the process.  And if the majority of the workday, and therefore of their working life, consisted of that process, how could the result be positive?  A lifetime of doing something that is not pleasant is an unpleasant life.

Service

As labor-saving devices grow in number, and as an affluent class comes more and more to rely on a less than affluent class to provide services from cleaning to cooking to decoration to home repair, the affluent come more and more to do less and less.  Unpleasant labor may be lifted from their shoulders, but not all such labor is entirely unpleasant, and the immediate reinforcement provided by such activities is taken away as well.  Distasteful activities are be sloughed off onto others, but what new behaviors are being developed in their place?  Maybe none. The affluent person is, in theory, freed to pursue other higher activities.  But in practice, he or she can also drift into a somnolent passivity.   With everything taken care of, what need is there to care?

Rule-Governed Behavior

One aspect of human behavior studied by behavior analysts is that of rule-governed behavior.  Unlike the realm of direct reinforcement, where actual activity is followed by direct reinforcement, in rule-governed behavior, reinforcing consequences are merely described.  “Touch the oven and you’ll be burned.” “Marry in haste, repent in leisure.” The descriptions may be correct, and action based on them may be wise.  Yet at the same time something is lost, because rich immediate experience has not quite taken place.  One has not learned directly:  a paler more ghostly form of reinforcement is taking place.  And it may well be strong enough to generate desirable behavior, but the behavior stemming from it will be weaker than it might otherwise have been.

Compliance

A related, yet perhaps more numbing, example is compliance with legal rules and regulations, and compliance with social norms.  Here reinforcing contingencies may not be described at all.  Certain behaviors are required by law and custom, and one either conforms or is punished.  Again, behaviors are learned and performed, but not behaviors resulting from a rich interaction with actual consequences following those behaviors.  But with this class of behaviors, even the image of reinforcing consequences is lost.  One conforms to the behavior of models, or acts to avoid reprisals.  Behavior takes place, but not a strong behavior that directly interacts with vivid positive consequences.

A Voyeurism of Aesthetics

Finally, there is the area of arts and entertainment.  And here again we have experience after repeated experience of something that is pleasing and enjoyable and interesting — but that reinforces only the passive behaviors of watching, looking, listening.  The artist paints and the filmmaker directs, but the viewer merely sits and views.  The action receives reinforcement, but the only behaviors reinforced are weak and receptive.

The emptiness of affluence, then, according to behaviorist perspectives, lies in the fact that affluence, as we experience it, may be rewarding, but it is an unfocused sort of reward that leads to a debilitated society.  The challenged may have to struggle, but each step upwards is reinforced.  Those who have reinforcements aplenty, however, have no particular reason to strive or reach or move at all.  They may be able to live a life of considerable enjoyment.  But enjoyment is not education, not creation, not heroic effort or determined activity.  What do you really do when you enjoy yourself?  Accomplishment may be a pleasure, but a great many pleasures require no accomplishment at all, large or small.  And when the constant diet of pleasure satiates?  What then?

Strengthening Contingencies

Is there a way out?  Behaviorists say yes.   If, in societies of general affluence, a rift develops between actions and the consequences that strengthen them, the solution is simple:  restore strengthening contingencies.  That can be done with a concentrated focus, selecting some particular activity one wants to build up, and arranging things so that every approach to it is consistently and strongly reinforced.  Or it can be done in a more general and exploratory manner, exploring natural reinforcing consequences.  Or one can modify contingencies in the very areas Skinner described.  If salaries are attractive but the work process itself is unrewarding, explore every possibly way to modify the process and make the process itself more positive.  If labor-saving devices and services leave you with little to do, then labor:  cook, clean, hammer, garden, mow.  If norms bore and regulations irk, do the unexpected and break a few rules.  Instead of watching films and shows, why not try your hand at writing them?

Affluence may easily lead to a sense of emptiness, but it also gives those who feel empty many tools to attain a new fullness.  What is most needed, say leading behavioral scientists, is a simple understanding that the consequences of what we do shapes what we do.  Surround passive behavior with ease and comfort and beauty and it will sprawl happily and shapelessly and remain that way so long as it is so supported.  Consistently follow active efficient behaviors with praise, attention, reward, and support, and those behaviors will strengthen and grow too.

Chiesa, Mecca (2004), Radical Behaviorism: The philosophy and the science, Sarasota, Florida: Authors Cooperative.
Baum, William (2004), Understanding Behaviorism: Behavior, Culture, and Evolution, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Skinner, B. F. (1983) A Matter of Consequences. New York: Knopf.
Skinner, B. F. (1987), Upon Further Reflection. Prentice-Hall, Inc.
New Economics Foundation (2009), Happy Planet Index:   http://www.happyplanetindex.org/

Self-image may consist of details subject to objective verification, such as height, weight, gender and so on; it may consist as well as social roles, internalized judgments of the self made by others, and – in particular — interpretations and assessments of the self made by the self.  A self-image may also include an awareness of false roles that are deliberately and consciously held, as in the case of hypocrisy or pretense. Research (Rogers et al. 1977) confirms that information that refers to the self gets better recall in memory tests and receives preferential cognitive processing, phenomena termed “self-referential encoding”.

Positive and Negative Self-Images
Self-image is frequently the object of psychotherapeutic interventions.  Negative or inaccurate self-images are often linked to limiting or harmful behaviors, and are frequently imposed socially by the surrounding culture, as well as smaller social networks such as friends, co-workers or family, without reference as to whether the prescribed self is an accurate or supportive role for the individual in question.  Competency and objectivity in evaluating reports and assessments about the self from others are far from universal, and many of those saddled with defective or inferior self-images manage to replace them – if at all – only after lengthy and arduous processes of examination.

Assessments of self-image are complicated by the problem of introspection.  Each person is privy to internal data that are not accessible to others.  Critical differences in self-image may stem from whether action are motivated by charity or cruelty, malice or fear, but only the internal experience of the person may bear witness to it.  The actual self is often in dialogue with an ideal self as well, which may serve as a source of inspiration and a collection of guidelines, or as a critical, psychically injurious, judge.

Another complicating factor is time:  self-images change as societies change, as social standards and expectations change, and as the body itself changes with age.  The images of what we have been will carry over and persist, whether they are any longer accurate or useful or not, and images of what we hope or fear we may become are intimately tied up with the values, actions, and assessments of ourselves here and now.

Seeing How You See The Body
Body image is a term that refers to a person’s perception of his or her physical appearance, capacities, and condition, and like self image, much of that assessment comes from the evaluation of others and the social standards of cultures not of our individual making.  Body image also concerns the ways in which one’s perception of one’s physical body affects how one acts and interacts with others in cases where the body is a significant factor.  As with other areas of self-image, what one imagines one’s appearance and physical state to be may be radically different from how one is perceived by others, or from what the reality of one’s physical condition or appearance may actually be – as is amply demonstrated by cases of perceived “phantom limbs” by amputees, or Out-Of-Body experiences (OOB).

Historically, body image is a surprisingly recent development in psychology.  Neurologist Henry Head first coined the term, but his use of it was focused more on how the brain assembles an overall framework  that melded a coordinated awareness of the information arriving from the body’s vestibular system, visual system, and proprioceptive centers (the areas that deal with body position and movement) and that correlated with dynamic body maps in the somatosensory, motor, and parietal cortices.  French child psychoanalyst Francoise Dolto, who first developed her theory of unconscious body image within a Freudian psychoanalytic framework, may be said to have made the first major theoretical contribution in the therapeutic field to the notion of body image in 1984.

The subject has since come into increasing prominence thanks to the growth of multiple and somewhat paradoxical factors in contemporary society:  first, the explosion of obesity across social and economic lines in First World nations, particularly the United States; and second, the increasing growth of extreme slimness as the accepted standard of beauty for the sexes, women in particular, in various forms of media.  Controversies involving “Size Zero” supermodels such as Twiggy and Kate Moss include claims that popular media glamorize thinness to a degree that fosters physically destructive weight-loss practices if not bulimia and anorexia.

A 1997 article in Psychology Today noted that roughly 40% of the men and 56% of the women who responded to a survey were unhappy about their physical appearance. Researchers Monteath and McCabe found that 44% of women studied expressed negative feelings about their bodies as a whole as well as individual parts of their bodies.  Clearly, the heightening of a difficult ideal, combined with the growing and dissonant reality, has been at the root of considerable personal dissatisfaction.  The inability of many to conform to an ideal that is difficult to impossible to achieve has resulted in depression, social isolation, and mental disorders and eating disorders and worse in all too many cases.

A Problem For All Genders
Body image is measured in various ways, including self-reports or by asking the subject to rate their current and ideal body shape by assessing a graded series of pictures or drawings. The difference between these two values is the amount of body dissatisfaction, and such dissatisfaction is general.   Psychologically burdensome discrepancies between actual body images and body images that are viewed as socially desirable are far from a phenomenon restricted principally to one gender.

While the desire to lose weight correlates strongly with negative body image across sexes, Kashubeck-West et al. report that, among men and women who desire to lose weight, sex differences in negative attitudes towards body image are roughly even. Men, however, are concerned not merely with weight loss but also with developing muscle mass, often requiring up to 26 pounds of additional muscle mass to achieve an acceptable body image.
As with women, media is a factor:  just as ultra-thin models often present an ideal that is physically unreachable for many, media images of masculinity, from sports action figures to body-builders, embody extremes not easily reached – indeed, figures ranging from boy’s action figures to comic books to cinematic protagonists like The Incredible Hulk represent a muscularity that goes well past the limits of human physiology.

Can You Alter Your Body Image?
One of the more interesting areas of study in the 1997 Psychology Today Body Image Survey was the subject of how individuals have managed to modify their body image so as to lessen dissatisfaction. While reports were anecdotal, many of the strategies have a common sense face value, as well as a surface compatibility with existing explanatory psychological frameworks. They include:

Focus On Health Not Appearance
This approach can literally be life-saving.  As a general rule, enhancing physical health enhances appearance and attractiveness.  Indeed, evolutionary psychology predicts that, taken as a whole, superiority in health must necessarily be a factor in positive evaluation in all relationships, since physical survival itself has historically has so often been connected to mates, kin, and tribes possessing the physical wherewithal to endure and triumph in the Darwinian struggle with competitors.  But the reverse is not true:  attractiveness does not necessarily enhance health, particularly when it is an attractiveness that curries to artificial social norms that are in some cases quite literally unattainable.  Anorexia, to give the most obvious example, can result in irrecoverable damage to the cardiac system, result in brain injury, and can and has led to the death of the person falling into it.

As a general rule, the healthier you are, the more attractive you will be.  And the better you will feel and function in many areas.  Pursuing health may be the most important thing you can do to improve body image – not least because actually improving the body leads directly to improving the image:  a growing awareness of tangible physical improvement necessarily translates into an improved self-assessment.

Develop Several Criteria For Self-Worth
One of the defects of body image as criteria for selfhood is its comparative narrowness.  Developing multiple benchmarks for self-esteem and self-evaluation, the subject can find many sources of positive self-evaluation. One respondent observed that achieving goals at work and through creative outlets and locating positive value in several life areas put body image in context as one factor only in an overall satisfactory life.

Moderate Your Exposure To Negative Images And Groups
“I stopped buying fashion magazines completely when I was about 24,” said one Midwestern survey respondent.  “Comparing myself to the models had a very strong and negative impact.”The practice was smart both in terms of recognizing the general fact that continual exposure to destructive norms prove counter-productive, but also in the fact that the respondent was able to gauge her individual reaction to environmental stimuli.

Not every criticism found in one’s environment is necessarily negative.  A degree of realism is needed for change to take place, and ideals are needed if one is to strive for them.  But if the ideals are themselves negative or unattainable, or if the criticisms are destructive rather than constructive, minimizing exposure to such may well be a preferred alternative.  The mind, like the body, consumes and digests, but what it consumes and digests are images and ideas.  Again like the body, some of the things consumed can be health-enhancing and some can sicken and poison and even kill.  We must take as great a care over what we ingest intellectually as we do with what we ingest physically.

As with images and ideas, so with association.  Social isolation is something to guard against, but being part of a group that continually devalues members for body appearance can be emotionally and physically destructive.  Better to associate with those who support than those who abuse.  This applies to pairs as well as groups:  “The most recent experience that has helped has been a lover,” noted one Psychology Today respondent. “He makes me glad to be in this body with this shape and these dimensions.”

Focus On Positive Thoughts And Dispute Negative Thoughts
“I constructed a tape of positive self-talk with personal goals and feelings I want to achieve,” said a respondent in her twenties. “When I have a bad attitude about my body, I pop in my tape. It really helps improve my self-image.”  She was following a time-honored method of changing internal monologue.  The things that cause us chronic psychic pain are not what we judge as the physical causes, but our reactions to those causes.  Obesity of itself does not cause depression:  devaluating oneself and one’s self-image by continually telling oneself how awful it is to be obese.  Change the internal word stream and the emotional anguish changes.

Can internal self-talk be changed.  Cognitive and behavioral scientists from Aaron Beck to Albert Ellis, as well as meditators and therapists and life coaches from Pema Chodron to Virginia Satir to Anthony Robbins, say yes.  First become aware of those thoughts, write them down and examine them critically, short-circuiting every unfair, overblown, or unhelpful aspect, and focus instead on repeating and repeatedly perceiving the good and valid aspects about yourself.  They are there, and the techniques work.  Find good things to say about your body and yourself:  if you have beautiful hands, beautiful eyes, a beautiful voice, better to dwell on those than on the one or two items that foster ongoing dissatisfaction.

Consider Deeper Factors
While a negative body image can be harmful in itself, some of us may unfortunately use it as a means to protect us from other forms of harm.  Is the problem really shyness and lack of social skills, and not body image?  In some cases.  Some may be inspired by a negative body image to work out more, but others may want to avoid working out or making an effort.  To such individuals, body image may be an excuse for inaction or withdrawal.  Examine whether there may not be hidden benefits in maintaining a poor body image.  Does it make it easier for you to overeat, or be sedentary, or avoid people?  If so, the problem is not body image but issues that go deeper, and need to be addressed – possibly with the help of professionals.

From Image To Reality
The principal thing to remember about body image and self image is that the reality is more important than the image.  To a degree, all our images of our self and our body are wrong, simply because the full reality of both is too complex to grasp.  What is past may be finite, but what is potential is infinite, and we all have the potential to grow and change physically and personally in ways that grow with every advance of science and society.  How we envisage our bodies and ourselves can help or hinder us on that path, and so we should do all we can to ensure that our images are supportive and strengthening, not harmful and limiting.  But perhaps the best way to do that is to consciously work on lifting the body and the self both to greater heights.  When the reality is attractive, the picture we and others have of it will attract too.  Or, to quote a Spanish proverb used by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche, “In true love, the soul envelops the body.”

Francoise Dolto, L’image inconscient du corps. Paris: Seuil, 1984.

Debra L. Gimlin, Body Work: Beauty and Self Image in American Culture (University of California Press, 2002)
Grogan, Sarah. Body Image: Understanding Body Dissatisfaction in Men, Women, and Children.
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Olivardia, R., Pope, H.G., Borowiecki, J.J., & Cohane, G.H. (2004). Biceps and body image: The relationship between muscularity and self-esteem, depression, and eating disorder symptoms. Psychology of men and masculinity, 5, 112-120.
Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.
Volkow N., & O’brein C. “Issue For DSM V: Should Obesity Be Included As A Brain Disorder?” The American Journal of Psychiatry. Vol. 164, 5, 708 (May 2007)
Fleming, J. S., & Courtney, B. E. (1984). The dimensionality of self-esteem: II Hierarchical facet model for revised measurement scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 404-421.
Markus, H., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954-969.

Christopher Columbus set out on an expedition to find a new sea route to the riches of India, and failed completely – he succeeded only in finding America. Thomas Edison made anecdotally at least, over ten thousand attempts to create the electric light bulb; virtual failures. Until the last attempt succeeded, and his light went on to illuminate every city and virtually every home in the world. Abraham Lincoln lost every election in which he ran for office – except for the last, when he became first a President, and then a legend.

What is failure? Clearly the question is not an easy one to answer. Technically it may be said to refer to being unable to meet a desired or intended goal. Such failures may include project failures, business failures, even social and political failures on the grandest scale – the fallen Roman, Byzantine and Soviet empires come to mind. But such failures, while non-trivial, are not subjective, and subjectivity is a major factor in assessing failure. Failure is often heavily dependent on the values of the observer: a situation considered to be a failure by one might be considered a success by another, and what is considered to be a failure from one angle might well be consider a success from another, or a qualified success from a third angle, or draw or tie from a fourth. Shifting, ambiguous, or ill-defined criteria make failure hard to define; indeed, the business of finding relevant effective criteria to assess success or failure may be one of the most important components of a task.

Feelings of Failure

For many, however, failure is not an abstract topic but a deeply personal anguish. The sense of failure and the self-definition of oneself as a failure can haunt lives, radically delimiting their scope and deeply tarnishing their subjective feel and texture. The label of failure can also reach out harmfully as a negative judgment, devaluing others. Yet can “a person” or “a society” truly be judged overall as a failure? Even the most severely crippled and incapacitated individuals, utterly dependent upon others, can hardly be said to live failed lives without value, as their very plight has given others the opportunity to show and practice compassion, and in some cases inspired scientists and researchers to extraordinary discoveries in the course of seeking a cure.

Feelings of failure nonetheless touch nearly everyone. No one achieves everything imaginable, and those who regard themselves as perfect in very way may be deemed vain or deluded at best, megalomaniacal at worst. We will each, psychologically, encounter numerous blocks and obstacles that are inherent in all labor, creativity and striving for achievement; and, frustrated, we may well turn back upon ourselves and label ourselves, self-destructively, as failures.

Are there ways to guard against and overcome such feelings of failure? There are.

Re-assess Your Goals

“If at first you don’t succeed, lower your standards,” may seem more wit than wisdom, but it contains a valuable insight: failure involves the inability to meet a goal, and if the goals set up are sufficiently high or so difficult as to be unachievable, not only will failure inevitably result, but genuine successes may be overlooked. It may well be possible to be a successful wife, mother, homemaker, caregiver, CEO, Presidential candidate and write the Great American Novel, but not in a weekend. Goals must be realistically achievable in order to be achieved, and one first step in overcoming failure is simply to formulate goals in more rationale and feasible terms. It is not merely a matter of lowering the bar, but of clarifying the terms: “Contribute five dollars more a week to charity” can be done, measured, recorded, and achieved. “Be a better person” is so vague as to make a judgment of achievement a matter of passing mood, and a misjudgment of success or a label of failure easy to apply.

Wherever possible, establish goals that you are realistic, associated with a timeframe, and accompanied by an objective measure of success. Then, gradually build upon small successes to broaden your goals and hence, move outside your comfort zone to accomplish same. Starting with smaller goals creates an aura of confidence which will create the appropriate environment for incrementally larger and greater achievements.

Develop Detached Awareness

Overcoming a sense of judgment or failure means first facing it squarely and seeing it for what it is. Often what we think of as a sense of failure is simply an ongoing stream of negative self-talk. But what exactly is it that we are saying to ourselves? What are the precise criteria that we are using to judge ourselves negatively? What language are we using, what assumptions are we making? How are we reacting emotionally – with anger, envy, depression? What environmental triggers precede and set off feelings of personal failure? What follows a burst of such feelings? Avoidance of stressful situations? Self-indulgence in food or alcohol?

The more exact the description that can be made as to the feelings associated with a sense of failure, and of the language in which such emotions are phrased, the circumstances in which they occur, and the consequences that follow, the greater the sense of control and objectivity will result, as well as an enhanced sensation or perception of freedom. Reading the words that you speak to yourself provides a sense of perspective. All too often, the individual notes that the actual words are melodramatic, often to the point of absurdity. The use of phrases such as ‘always’, ‘never’ are keys to understanding the way in which an individual perceives and processes the occurrence of an external event. Words are powerful tools, and when used inappropriately, can lead to unwarranted feelings of frustration and despair. By changing the words and associations, one can actually change perceptions and even consequences.

Understanding the internal processes at play, and establishing how and what is actually involved when experiencing a sense of failure can be as simple as keeping a notebook or diary to track the amount and type of self-talk one engages in. Additionally, a particularly helpful practice in coping with feelings of failure, and in fact with negative feelings of any kind is meditation, and in particular a common form of Buddhist meditation that involves simply observing passing thoughts with detachment (i.e., without judgment, be they positive or negative in nature).

Meditation at Play

The general health benefits of meditation are well established. Physical conditions such as high blood pressure have been ameliorated, and mental conditions ranging from anger to despair have been soothed. The practice requires no unusual postures, can be done in a chair, and initially involves nothing more than maintaining a simple awareness of the breath. The meditator subsequently may be asked to focus upon a particular image, such as a candle flame, or a particular phrase (called a mantra). But one common meditative approach involves simply sitting in calm detachment, and allowing thoughts to rise spontaneously and fall away, without emotional involvement or commitment on the part of the meditator. One merely notices the thought, acknowledges it, and lets it float away.

Why is this practice of particular help to those suffering from feelings of failure? Simply states, those who suffer from such feelings are often so emotionally wrapped up in their feelings that intensely negative words, ideas, and actions follow as a unit almost automatically, thus perpetuating a harmful cycle. The problem cannot be addressed calmly or objectively because there is no calm, only anguish. The practice of calm detached meditative observation creates a new associated response, in which the appearance of negative thoughts does not result automatically in negative thought patterns and behaviors. The habit of simple observation within meditation leads to a habit of simple observation outside the meditative practice, and thoughts of failure, as with any other negative thoughts or feelings, may be observed calmly, assessed coolly and dealt with objectively.

Criticize Your Criticisms

Albert Ellis, founder of Rational-Emotive Therapy and Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, developed an initially controversial but soon well-received and highly effective method of dealing with maladaptive thinking: he criticized such thoughts. Directly and mercilessly. Anticipating later cognitive therapeutic approaches, Ellis argued that the issue with negative thinking and self-labeling was that the thoughts themselves were wrong: overblown, inaccurate, badly defined; indeed, just plain untrue. Demonstrating the falsity and absurdity of such thinking was the therapist’s chief goal, thought Ellis, and therapeutic sessions with him often involved directly eliciting negative self-statements from a client and virtually obliterating such statements and their corresponding underlying beliefs.

In terms of dealing with thoughts and self-judgments of failure, Ellis’ works hold numerous transcripts of successful applications of this method of critique. Furthermore, it is a technique that anyone can use. If you lose a job during lay-offs, for instance, are you truly “a complete failure?” Or are you in fact an experienced worker or professional likely to find employment elsewhere? Are you “a failure” if your spouse leaves you? Or is your departed spouse the failure, for failing to see your value? If you lose an election, are you “a failure” or the next Lincoln? Don’t react: analyze with detachment and objectivity.

Cognitive psychologist Aaron Beck once categorized maladaptive cognitions (harmful and mistaken thoughts) as thoughts that fell into three general types of error: they tended to be personal, pervasive, and permanent. One tennis player might lose a game and regret it, but shrug it off and continue to practice even harder, or simply chalk up the loss to a single game, which indeed is what it was. Whereas, a second player might take the result as meaning that he himself was the failure (personalizing the situation), and from that mental thought process, an entire day, his mood, his social standing, even relationships might be impacted, not to mention that if left untended, might well spiral out of control, leading to a belief that the loss indicated that his health, fitness and competitive edge were also in decline (pervasive thoughts), and, at worst, that he would never win and never get improve (permanent thoughts). The presence of the Three P’s, felt Beck, was a certain sign that maladaptive thinking was at play – and a sure indicator of what to address and refute.

Failure as a Message from Deeper Levels of the Self

When a person fails at a particular task for which one might imagine that they would be well suited, psychologists from analytic schools often consider it purposeful. The unconscious, they say, is sending a message, and the message is that this particular goal or course is something that the person as a whole really does not want to achieve. Failing at a job may mean that on some level a person realizes the job is not for them. Failing at a marriage may mean that on some level the person realizes the marriage does not work and never will.

When failure results even though no external factors seem responsible, internal factors may be at play, and those factors are not always merely negative or harmful. It may well be that such internal factors are endeavoring to provide relevant counsel, and may be hampering the achievement of certain goals in order to point the person towards higher, better, or more appropriate ones. Or it may be that limiting beliefs that are no longer applicable are inadvertently sabotaging conscious efforts to achieve a certain goal.

Learning from Failure

There is a saying to the effect that there is no failure: only feedback. This aspect of failure is often forgotten. Failure tells you something about the world, and something about yourself. What it says may not be negative at all, but very helpful. Indeed, this is the way that successful individuals view failure, as a signal of what can be improved or enhanced, rather than personalizing the situation. If you fail to get a job in a particular industry, is it your qualifications that are at issue, or is it because the industry as a whole is failing, while other industries that could use your skills are on the rise? If the latter, you may be receiving information that could profitably shape the whole of your future career.

Failure is information – information that may help you avoid larger and more calamitous failures in the future by pointing you towards areas requiring further study and training, inspiring new and creative approaches to replace the strategies that have ceased to work. Attending to failure is attending to reality, and seeing things as they are is the first step in transforming them into what they could be.

Notice and Acknowledge Success

The Japanese have a saying used in the context of board games, but applicable to life in general: “Win at go, lose at shogi.” The meaning, of course, is that failure in one area does not preclude success in another. In fact, it may be intimately tied up with a different, unexpected success. We fail to get up on time – but we find we have gained the sleep that we may have lacked. Or we may fail to gain sufficient sleep, but at least we have awakened on time! Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner once pointed out that the average human life was a series of thousands upon thousands of reinforcing consequences every day. Flip a switch, the light come on. Turn the door knob, the door opens. Press the remote, the television turns on. Every life consists of innumerable small unacknowledged successes, in Skinner’s view. The life of the person pursued by feelings of failure, however, overlooks successes, and focuses only upon the negative few that confirm the self-judgment of failure. An error: successes surround everyone, and one of the happier ways to pull oneself out of despondency over perceived failure is to perceive our successes, and remind ourselves of them frequently.

Failure: Inevitable Component of Success

It is fair to say that, whatever the goal, one is not likely to achieve it instantly, invariably, and perfectly every time. Goals are reached, but the satisfying finished conclusion can only be attained by ascending through a series of stages that are not so gratifying in the short term: if we progress, we do so through a series of lesser, sometimes failed or less than efficient approximations that are stages along the way. If we do perceive them as steps along the way, we are energized and continue; if we mistakenly view them as terminal points that belittle our abilities rather than as way stations to greater achievements, then we may call them, and ourselves, failures. While the subject matter is not a humorous one for the person perceiving him or herself as a failure, a bit of humor might help. For example, if one were to take the perfection to its ultimate limits, it might be said that such a conviction of chronic failure may itself have a bright side: it argues that the person will fail even to maintain even his or her sense of failure, and therefore inevitably come to see his or her efforts for what they are: an ever-growing accumulation of achievements and experiences that must inevitably yield value both professionally and personally.

Lack of apparent success is not the true definition of failure. The true definition of failure is not to even try. The true definition of success was best put by Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem, Ulysses: “To strive, to seek, to fight, and not to yield.”

Sandage, Scott A. Born Losers: A History of Failure in America. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.

Seligman, Martin (1990). Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. Free Press.