Thoughts on failure and disappointment from Felix Meller

I’ve been thinking about failure a lot lately. More so than ever after England'sagonising defeatin the World Cup semi final last night. This might seem a strange way to view a tournament that hinges on the high stakes and joy that winning matches brings for a nation’s supporters. However, rather than fixate on the glory that comes with scoring the winning goal, I often find myself more interested in those who give their all on the field yet still fall short.

What happens afterwards? How do you come back from a devastating loss? Sport can be useful for thinking about resilience, and not just when we consider those on the ‘wrong’ side of the scoreboard. For instance, you wouldn’t associate the word ‘failure’ with serial winners likeMichael JordanorRoger Federer, yet both men have spoken eloquently about how this made them better athletes.

Another sporting anecdote that has stayed with me came through Alice Soper’sSubstacklast year, in which the journalist, 'rugby player and human firework' discussed the New Zealand starlet Hannah King. After making her senior team debut in 2024, King was widely expected to be named in the Black Ferns’ squad for theWomen’s Rugby World Cupthe following year. Instead, the young fly-half was called up for the development side – news that gave Soper pause for thought.

Because the women’s game has a smaller talent pool than the men’s, promising female rugby players tend to get promoted up the high-performance ladder the moment they show potential. Soper notes that such a rapid rise 'ill prepares you for a non-selection call’, and expressed hope that King – who had been tested heavily over the course of the rugby season – would view her placement in the development squad as a gift and more time to mature, rather than a rejection.

Soper’s reflections on Hannah King map neatly onto executive search. Candidates from thin, high-demand talent pools who have only ever been courted tend to take job rejections harder than people in broader fields. The messenger – i.e., the recruiter or hiring manager – may need to calibrate the news accordingly, though as Soper notes, knockbacks can be as much of a blessing in disguise in business as in sport.

For instance, many investors actively prefer people on their second or third startup, rather than first-timers, precisely because things didn’t work out for them before. There is often a premium placed on newness in our society – and, relatedly, on youth – but I’ve met plenty of investors who would rather work with entrepreneurs that have shown the grit to get over their previous shortfalls, learnt the lessons and are ready to go back to the well again. After all, various prominent enterprises have their roots in disasters – in the case ofMountain Warehouse, three of them. Businesses like Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Venmo, and Pinterest were all formed in the wake of the2008 crash.

I’d like to think that some of the recentbacklashto Steven Bartlett complaining about how three glasses of wine ‘ruined his life’ for a few days wasn’t only about the oppressive nature of optimisation culture, but also a paean to the importance of overcoming challenges. Namely, if that’s what constitutes ruining your life, how will you respond when things really hit the fan? I’m constantly inspired by friends and colleagues negotiating truly challenging circumstances in their day-to-day, yet who still manage to keep things ticking over.

Still, for all the talk of how you can learn resilience, and however many times you hear that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, it doesn’t hide how much failure can hurt when it happens. Closely related to – indeed, a natural consequence of – not succeeding in your goals is the feeling of disappointment. It’s something we all experience, but received wisdom about brushing it off may not always work, especially in a professional context.

For that very reason, I was interested to read an article byDr Annette Clancy, an academic whosePhD thesisfocused on organisational responses to disappointment. The six points she outlined on this topic inThe Conversationstrike me as being particularly sound:

1.      Don’t get ahead of yourself

If you’re waiting to hear about a job offer, exam result, or the outcome of a proposal, it’s best to prepare yourself and try not to get emotionally invested in a result that may not come. It’s only normal to get one’s hopes up, but, as Clancy writes, ‘severe disappointment in not getting a job or missing out on a promotion can stem from the loss of a working future we had already begun to imagine. If that future does not materialise, we grieve it – even if it never fully existed.’

2.      Don’t set yourself up for a fall

Doing well and meeting your targets is great – but you’ll need to manage the heightened expectations that come as a result!

3.      Try not to blame yourself or others

Finding fault with yourself for not trying hard enough – or with others for not recognising your value – can be understandable reactions to disappointing news. However, Clancy argues that both responses fail to register what is often the case: that expectations are improbable, and/or based on less than accurate assumptions.

4.      The more you put in, the more you get out? Not necessarily

It’s important to aim high and push yourself, but what happens if you fall short? Clancy cites ‘the Ikea effect’, a term psychologists have devised for exploring how we value things more if we invest significant effort in them (like a piece of flatpack furniture). Striving to progress at work may motivate you, but if you don’t succeed with a given project or task, of course, it may not go unnoticed.  Putting your heart and soul into something only to fall short – particularly when set against a high-stakes scenario – may see your appetite for risk diminish, and for you to fear that any such efforts in future are not worth the effort.

5.      Realism versus idealism

Trying to avoid disappointment outright is unrealistic, as well as unhealthy. Instead, you might want to reconsider how you frame things and aim for a more realistic outcome, rather than the best possible one. Naming disappointment, discussing it openly and learning from it can help you grow and move on more than if you just try to move on from it quietly.

6.      Acceptance versus dismissal

Relatedly, disappointment can be a good opportunity to question your own expectations and where they come from. Examining the gap between your hopes and reality can help to develop real resilience and understanding yourself and how you work better.

In case it wasn’t evident, none of the above is intended to discount disappointment as a damaging, unpleasant experience. I do not mean to dismiss the very real challenges for mental health and self-esteem that can arise from failing to achieve what you had hoped for. I can also understand how people struggling in the jobs market, and/or those who have been laid off, might not take kindly to hearing about founders who used their setbacks as fuel. I appreciate all that.

My point is merely that your mind is more malleable, more powerful, than it might seem in tough times. You can reframe things and look at them from a different perspective, even using failure as the catalyst for better things. It won’t be easy – but no one will do it for you if you give up.

The late Sam Neill gave a wonderful perspective on this for the Australian edition ofThe Assembly. In aclipthat has been doing the rounds again in the wake of the Kiwi actor’s death, he reflected on the most valuable thing he learned from his parents: the way his mother once told him, in no uncertain terms, how he should cope with panicking about university exams. ‘I think that was the best lesson I learned from her: sometimes, you just have to pull yourself together,’ Neill says. It’s a tough lesson, but it’s a good one.’

Just in case you were wondering what happened to Hannah King after she missed out on the World Cup squad, she has now played in the last three Black Ferns international matches (and they have won all three). However, to conclude, rather than reach for another sports metaphor, I’llquotefrom the Irish author Samuel Beckett (himselfno slouch at cricket). ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’ After all, he should know – all that failure won him a Nobel Prize.

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