“Failing gives you an opportunity to start over with the benefit of all the things you learned in the process of building it the first time,” Bailey told Blavity. “You learned what worked, you learned what didn’t work, you learned where your support system lies. It’s really an opportunity to take that knowledge base that you have from the first shot or the first trial and make it a solid foundation to build a successful attempt at your goal.”

Bailey compared the idea of beginning fresh with having a blank canvas versus starting over with somewhat of a sketch on how to proceed.

“You already have some scaffolding — you may not have a complete blueprint, but you at least have a direction to begin the process. When you have that prior knowledge, you can enter the marketplace in a stronger position. You can attack your goal in a stronger position because you know what’s good, you know what’s bad, you know who the key players in this area are, so you kind of know how to move. And I think that also it can really reduce some of that anxiety and the fear because you’re not going into it with all of the what ifs, the who’s, the maybes. You have some of those answers already from the first experience.”

Experiencing failure allows you to create a better action plan on your way to achieving your goals.

“You come back from it and you have to sit with yourself and you have to really think through and say, ‘what areas of this did I need more help? Where did I need more support?’ And it kind of can challenge that superwoman syndrome that we have sometimes where we think we can do it all by ourselves for ourselves and forces us to acknowledge that we need support,” Bailey said.

“It makes us reflect on the areas where we need to grow. But the flip side is it also gives you a unique opportunity to see what you do well in real-time, it gives you some real-life experience to say, ‘I’m good at this. I’m good at this area, but I may need some help in this other area.’ So, it really can make you more self-aware if you take the opportunity after you’ve had a perceived failure to really sit with yourself.”

It’s also important to understand that failure is something you experience and not something you are. Bailey said you need to even consider whether or not the experience was actually a failure or was it just a lesson. 

“Especially for those of us Black women. A lot of times we go into everything thinking we have to be the best, the brightest,” Bailey said. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves within this extremely high bar for success that essentially we created. We’re holding ourselves to a standard sometimes that other people aren’t holding us to. So was it a failure or was it really an opportunity to learn and grow?”

Some people bounce back from failure quickly while others take longer to regroup, but either way you slice it, Bailey said you should seek to return more resilient.

“How quickly you recover from a failure or failed attempt at something really is pivotal to your success,” she said. “A lot of times we have this perceived notion that we failed at something and we think about it over and over and we’re not in action. So for me, failure gives you an opportunity to choose action. Instead of that period of analysis, it gives you an opportunity to build your muscles.”

She likened the process to working out at the gym as a reminder that in the same way physical results take regular practice and time, so do mental results.

“The more you do something, the better you’ll get at it, but you can only get better if you continue to show up. And that’s where the resiliency comes — making the decision to show up so that I can learn the lessons that are gonna make me better. But you don’t get that if you’re succeeding — if you’re constantly winning. I think we live in a society that’s glorified winning so much that we don’t realize the value of failure.” 

But building resilience doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t cry it out sometimes.

“I tell my clients all the time, give yourself an hour, take 30 minutes to just feel all the feelings, cry, talk to your best friend, vent to your husband, do all the things. Feel all the feelings, take another 30 minutes to write in your journal, write it out and get it out of your heart, your mind and your body. Don’t hold it, get it out and then get back in action.”

It’s very easy to allow something you’ve experienced to become a huge part of your existence. But the key, as Bailey said, is not to let the lesson define, but rather allow it to redefine your thoughts.

“It’s important for us to look at ourselves as an entire being, look at where we’re strong and where we have an opportunity to grow and define ourselves so that when we have a failure, we aren’t consistently defining ourselves by it,” Bailey said. “Things like, ‘oh, I’m a college dropout.’ No, you’re not a college dropout — you’re a person who went to school and has an opportunity to go back. Give yourself permission to redefine who you are as a person with the totality of your experiences. And not just that one moment.”

She said that you also have to know who you are. 

“You have to decide who you are and hold on to the decision that you’ve made for yourself, of who you are. So then when you face those negative opinions that come with failure, you can say, ‘I hear the noise, but that’s not who I am.’ You can say, ‘that’s your opinion of me, but I don’t have to hold it.’ But it’s important for you to have that definition or make that decision of who you are for yourself. So you are not distracted by everyone else’s opinion.”

Failing allows you to embrace change. 

“A lot of times we approach our goals and pursuits with a very fixed mentality, but failure gives you an opportunity to reevaluate that approach and really define if that is the best approach for you,” Bailey said. “It allows you to revive the pursuit of your goals. It allows you to really build some flexibility because we live in a very rigid society. So, if Susie has done it this way, then that’s the way that it should be done. But that may not be the best way for Latasha. So, it gives you an opportunity to really build some buoyancy and flexibility in how you approach the things that you wanna do despite what society is telling you to do.”

Experiencing a setback can often make a victory feel that much sweeter.

“It is only when you have failed at something that you can truly be grateful for when it has worked in your favor. And it’s not until you’ve been hungry that you realize the value of being fed — I think failure is the same thing,” Bailey said. “It’s not until you have failed that you can understand the true sweetness of success.”

She said that society doesn’t seem to celebrate the wholeness of what it means to fail at something.

“I don’t think that we give enough voice to the other side of failure,” she said. “The other side of failure is when you have been resilient and you have tried again and it’s been successful and you can reflect on the entirety of your journey to get to success.”

Social media has given the world an outlet to showcase the very best of themselves, but what if people also shined a light on the hard times, Bailey asked. 

“Failure gives you an opportunity to really share your human experience outside of the glimpses that we show on social media. It gives you an opportunity to be authentic and to say, ‘I have not always been this person, I have not always been successful.’ It really can be a light at the end of the tunnel for someone who is in the season of perceived failure, who feels like nothing is working in their favor right now, but everybody else is winning. Hearing someone say, ‘listen, I might be winning right now, child, but I was eating Ramen noodles just a little while ago.’ Just being able to really be a human and show the entirety of your journey to someone who needs to see it.”

Sharing your humanity can also keep you grounded.

“You have to show it to yourself, too, because sometimes we get comfortable in our successes and we have to look back at what got us there in order for us to really have the momentum to level up.”

Overall, failure does not have to define you.

“It can be a momentary experience,” Bailey said. “And that’s why I say a perceived failure because it only feels like failure when you’re in the moment. It doesn’t feel like a failure when you’ve taken the lesson that came from that opportunity and used it to your benefit. Allow yourself to have the moment and not be stifled by the moment — use the experience to your benefit.”

If you are having trouble making it through perceived failures, Bailey recommends seeking mental health counseling, consulting with a life coach and surrounding yourself with a positive network of supportive friends and family.