The way we talk about success and failure shapes our mental well-being

I come from Eastern Europe. I was born in the communist regime to a very unusual family (in the 80s). My dad was already 63 when I was a teenager. My mum was 22 years younger than him so she looked like his daughter and me like his grand daughter. The curious questions from my peers did not bother me that much, though my sister - 6 years younger, did not like them at all.

Imagine growing up with a dad who was born in between 2 World Wars. He knew very well what poverty and shortage was. (As a consequence we were always forced to finish our meals even if we did not like them or were full.) He also knew what a success meant - his father was an architect and entrepreneur who owned couple of properties in Czechoslovakia. He also knew what a defeat was - in the 50s, under the communist regime all the property was confiscated by the state and both him and his sister were dismissed from architecture studies. Next, they went on to find odd jobs and needed to overcome feelings of injustice, rejection and maybe humiliation.

Once the communist regime was peacefully overthrown there came opportunities but more importantly the possibility to reclaim oneself and one´s dreams back. Only, it happened when my father was 63 years old. He courageously went on to work for a foreign company in his retirement age, managed all the legal process of restitution of stolen property, yet he could not rewind the time. So he looked hopefully to his successors and projected his dreams onto us!

What did we hear about success in life? It meant working hard, never giving up, aiming high, resting was not permitted. Success was also linked to certain fields, humanities not among them. Maybe because humanity failed my father massively? Part of the successful journey was not owing it to anybody. It was looked upon as weakness, because you can do everything if you try hard enough. (I suspect now that underneath it there was a mistrust.) Success was not connected with wealth but rather with knowledge, status of belonging, visible output. Hard work bears fruit, so achievement was a normal outcome, nothing special. Children´s success reflected parental sacrifice and their active involvement in shaping the offspring. It was a vehicle to make a parent proud. Lack of it meant a complete and utter parental disappointment. Leaving kids with feelings of never being enough.

Nobody asked us what being successful in life meant to us? Nobody reflected upon the lack of control of external circumstances. About the resilience that grows under harsh circumstances by not accepting defeat, fueled by comparison, hurt pride and maybe hidden anger? Nobody fathomed allowing other option - growing resilience with acknowledging presence of injustice and fostering self-love, perseverance that does not exclude rest and self-care.

Failure was not in the vocabulary. But still it had a definition: everything below excellent! Thus hard work and zero rest were a preventative measure not to become a loser and to control the future. It ultimately led me to having the impostor syndrome and becoming a meticulous planner and controller. The fatigue or any other bodily signal of distress were not to stand in the way of fully operational individual. Strategy that works until the body cannot continue - either because of internal collapse or collapse "imposed" by an illness or accident.

Considering failure as an opportunity to learn something about ourselves? The way we learn, work, think, prepare or not prepare? Could it be an inevitable life experience that often does not depend on our efforts, so we may as well relax? Is failure always a closure - end of a career progress, end of a marriage? Or could it be an opening, a new discovery, a start of new approach to life? Not up for debate.

Personal experience but probably relatable to many of you.

Fast forward to the present, what do I see has changed in the society? We talk about stress related to "outcome" - be it in school or work settings. We are able to name and put in place strategies to navigate during tense situations. We talk and read a lot about burnout and recovery from burnout. We know more or less where to reach out for help if we feel psychologically distressed.

But we do not talk about the root cause of excessive stress everywhere.

The recent survey of Chambre des salariés Luxembourg shows that the quality of working life in Luxembourg dropped to the lowest level in a decade. The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study from 2022 states that 62,3% of girls suffer from psychosomatic symptoms such as headaches, inability to sleep well and 16,5 % to 25 % of young people have some form of psychological disorder. Reasons stated are the following: COVID pandemics, loneliness, reduced physical activity, socioeconomic inequalities and we could now probably add the world being at war. Everybody calls for systemic change but where should we begin?

By revisiting first trans-generational trauma. Watch out for unhealthy patterns. What did we hate or did not like when we were kids? What did we miss, wished our parents did differently? How can we gradually change something we are unconsciously repeating? (Pushing the kids or ourselves to be occupied meaningfully all the time. Being strict, demanding, result-oriented).

By working on our fears - especially fear of future. Am I always playing the worst-case scenario? (My child will not have the best grades and therefore their choices of further studies would be limited. If I do not work overtime I will be not promoted. If I say no, I would be judged/not loved.) Fear of missing out - checking constantly about trainings, workshops, new opportunities, competitions the child or myself need to take part in, in order to be well prepared for the future. That will happen in a span of 10 years or more and by that time everything will be different!

By adjusting our language when we speak about success: "I am so proud of you." - involves taking the credit, caressing own ego. Instead we can offer curiosity: Tell me how you achieved this? What did your journey involve? We can share happiness: I imagine you are happy, joyful.

When things go wrong - bad exam result, loss in a sports competition - try not to judge and look for culprits. "You could do better. How come you trained so long and you lost? You´d better spend less time on your phone and start studying." Instead we can offer space to their feelings of disappointment. Ask them what they think did not work well? Ask whether they need help from your side or a tutor or a coach. Also, let them fail. Let yourself fail. Cultivate compassionate self-talk.

When talking about both, move on and try to be neutral. Do not celebrate for weeks a won competition or a successful university admission - mentioning it every time your friends come along. Do not fuel "celebrity"status. At the same time, grieve the flops but do not dwell in them, re-examining them constantly, underlining it should not happen again, because it will.

The way we talk about success and failure shapes our mental well-being. It stays deeply ingrained in our minds and bodies. Parental disappointment in a child is a rejection and form of control. Kids can develop anxiety, depression, have low self-esteem which can in turn lead to poor behavior and poor academic performance. It impacts brain regions like prefrontal cortex that is involved in attention, working memory, and impulse control. Amygdala - responsible for regulating emotions is also negatively impacted - prone to anxiety and fear.

On the other hand, praising too much, putting emphasis on "best" - best results, one of the best schools, best career prospects not only makes our society more and more narcissistic but does not prepare our kids for "average". Average being the norm, ordinary "destiny"of majority of us. Average can be good, fine, even best sometimes. The "Middle-Way" in Buddhism encourages balance and moderation, avoiding extremes. Effort is mindful and comparison is ego-delusion. Instead of aiming to be above average we could aim at developing compassion and recognize oneness and shared humanity with others.

It took me couple of years to shake off the constant urge for striving to be better. It took me couple of years to be able to acknowledge that my little successes are not random, nor just the result of hard work but more of navigating well between highs and lows. It took me couple of years not to feel bad about just sitting for an hour on a sunny balcony with my coffee and contemplating life. But and that must be said - it was work, conscious work and then also conscious practice. With my mind but also body - breath work, relaxation, grounding, visualisation, befriending my inner critic etc. And I feel we owe it to ourselves but we owe it also to the next generation. Systemic change, as paradoxically as it may sound, starts at individual level. It is not top down approach. We can have as many strategies to cope, as many good advise, as many workshops as we want. But first we need to acknowledge and allow ourselves to fail, not to be ashamed of failing.

And success? Let´s fully enjoy it - may it be "only" getting up in the morning, putting on clothes and going behind the desk, working on an average task that is not going to be written about in a newspaper.