Failure Hurts More Than It Should (What No One Tells You About It)

The psychological trap of learned helplessness, unfair expectations, and why success isn’t what it seems

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I get it — failure hurts. And it hurts a lot. Yet, we’re expected to process it and move on as if it’s simple, as if it doesn’t make our hearts ache.

We’re told failure is part of the process.
We’re told it’s okay to fail, that failure is an event, not a person.

Every textbook that talks about failure says this. Every self-help article repeats it. But the fact remains: it hurts. And most of us don’t actually know how to overcome it.

I was about to write a textbook-style article on failure — one of those generic pieces about resilience and learning from setbacks.

But as I started writing, it felt fake. Like something ripped straight from a how to succeed in life guide. And sure, we all want to live a great life. But let’s be honest — that’s not possible for everyone. Not everyone can reach the level these books talk about. Not everyone can afford vacations in the Maldives or own every Apple device, only to pretend they have money problems because they can’t buy the latest iPhone.

And if you’re one of those people, this piece isn’t for you. I’m sorry, but you’re too financially comfortable for this article. We’ll talk some other time. This is for those who are genuinely struggling. Those who don’t understand why, despite giving their best effort, they still fail at most things in life. This is for those who have stopped taking risks because the fear of failure outweighs the chance of success. And that’s basic human psychology — it’s not their fault.

Psychologists call this learned helplessness.

When someone keeps failing despite their best efforts, they stop trying — not because they’re lazy, but because their brain has been conditioned to expect failure. They don’t just fear failing; they believe it’s inevitable.

The worst part? They don’t even realize this is happening.

Instead, they blame themselves for not doing enough or not trying hard enough. But in reality, they are stuck in a loop where their efforts only lead to failure. And they can’t even see the progress within those failures. For them, things are either black or white: either you’re winning, or you’re losing. No one talks about the grey.

But guess what?

We spend most of our lives in the grey — where we are neither fully succeeding nor completely failing. We are constantly evolving. We are learning what not to do. We are learning our limits. We are learning the harsh truth of chance and opportunity.

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Let Me Tell You a Story

Today, while traveling in an auto, I saw people working by the roadside — working hard, trying to earn enough to survive, trying to give their children a future, even if they can’t dream of one themselves.

But when a child grows up watching that struggle, an unseen burden settles on their shoulders. They promise themselves that when their time comes, they will change the world.

They will make a difference.

And thanks to so-called Hindi serials, where businessmen casually throw around numbers like 500 crores as if it’s nothing, this child starts believing that success is easy. Or they see fake portrayals of financial struggles, where a man in a crisp white kurta claims to be poor but somehow has no stains on his clothes.

These things shape a child’s mindset. They grow up believing they will be rich, that they will be the hero of their family. But when that time comes, their expectations are so impossibly high that failure feels devastating.

And failure is inevitable for the vast majority when trying something for the first time.

But for that child — the one who grew up watching his father struggle, his mother cry over the smallest necessities — failure feels like the end of opportunity. That fear embeds itself deep within them. It becomes a belief: I’m not good enough. And they carry that belief into adulthood.

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So, What’s the Point of All This?

Why am I telling this story?

Because the fear of failure doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. It’s generational. It’s woven into our earliest conditioning.

A 23-year-old doesn’t suddenly acquire this fear — it starts at 7 or 8, when they first see their parents struggle and think, One day, I’ll overcome this misery. I’ll make something of myself. But the world doesn’t work that way. We hear stories of the outliers who made it big. But no one talks about the thousands who followed the same principles, did everything right, and still didn’t make it.

The world paints a biased picture of success. And until we start showing things as they really are, we can’t begin to change them.

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This Piece Lacks a ‘Solution’ — Because I Don’t Have One

There is no easy fix.

No magic formula.

Just the realization that the world is unfair — not just in terms of opportunity, but in terms of where we even start from. And honestly, we all need to understand that unfairness is relative. What seems unfair to you might be someone else’s dream to achieve.

But never mind — let’s get back on topic.

That dream of becoming an outlier? It’s random. It has nothing to do with hard work or even smart work. In fact, what we call smart work is often just hindsight bias. I hate to break your spirit, but someone has to say it.

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So, Is There a Silver Lining?

Yes, there is. Hard work and smart work don’t guarantee success. But they do increase the probability of it. And sometimes, that’s all we have.

Everything that can happen will happen.

That being said, life is always probabilistic in nature — and all we can do is increase our odds. And that gives us hope — that at least we can try.

So, if you’re doing your best, don’t let failure define you. Because, like most things in life, it’s not about you.