6 Things You’re Accidentally Mistaking For Failure 

1. You aren’t seeing the results you want to see. Nothing is going to change overnight. Just because you can’t physically see how much you’ve accomplished right now doesn’t mean all the work you’ve been putting in has been useless. It’s going to take a while for your hard work to give you real, concrete results, but you have to keep going. You have to have faith you’ve been doing the right thing. You can’t lose your motivation, simply because the hours you’ve put in yesterday aren’t apparent today. You’ll get there eventually — unless you give up now.

2. You’ve messed up. Just because you’ve suffered from a setback or have made a small mistake doesn’t mean that you’re destined to fail. Remember, success isn’t the first step toward reaching your goals. It’s the final step. Before you reach your destination, you are going to screw up. You are going to face obstacles. At the end of the day, your mistakes don’t matter. Whether or not you’re able to bounce back matters. Whether you keep going when you’re tempted to quit matters.

3. You feel like you’re ‘behind’ your friends. It doesn’t matter whether there are people your age who have more money than you or are more advanced in your field than you. You can’t measure success. You can’t compare your journeys. Just because someone else has reached certain milestones by now doesn’t mean you were supposed to do the same. It doesn’t mean you’re falling behind. You’re on two completely different paths. Their wins are not your losses.

4. You aren’t where you hoped you’d be when you were younger. Your goals are going to shift as you grow older. You aren’t going to want the same exact things you wanted as a kid. Even if your goals haven’t changed, your expectations should’ve changed. You can’t set a strict timeline for yourself, because life cannot be planned out that precisely. You can’t predict when you are going to reach certain milestones. You simply have to keep trying.

5. You are being picked apart by family and friends. You can’t focus on making other people proud. You have to focus on making yourself proud. It doesn’t matter what anyone else has to say about you. After all, If you have a hard time accepting compliments from others, why do you have such an easy time accepting the mean things they have to say? Remember, anyone who tries to make you feel bad about yourself isn’t worth keeping in your life. You should stick with people who encourage you, not demolish you.

6. You feel like a failure. Everyone has doubts. Everyone questions their own strengths and abilities. However, you have to remember, your insecurities could be tricking you into believing something that isn’t true. Just because you feel like a failure doesn’t mean it’s the truth. Just because you are disappointed in yourself today doesn’t mean you will feel the same tomorrow. You need to treat yourself with more kindness, because chances are, you’re doing just fine.