{"id":94,"date":"2016-12-09T17:06:00","date_gmt":"2016-12-09T17:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/?p=94"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:49:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:49:28","slug":"the-link-between-high-self-esteem-and-fearless-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/?p=94","title":{"rendered":"The Link Between High Self-Esteem and Fearless Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Abraham Lincoln bombed his first shot at politics. Michael Jordan didn&#8217;t even make his high school basketball team. Walt Disney? Fired for &#8220;lacking creativity.&#8221; (Yep\u2014the guy who invented talking mice and fairy-tale empires was apparently too boring for print.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If these folks had let failure define them, they&#8217;d be nobodies in dusty history books instead of household names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At PsychTests, our research backs this up. In a study with 3,660 people using <a href=\"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/corporate\/tests\/self-esteem-assessment-2nd-revision\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SEA (Self-Esteem Assessment)<\/a>, we found that people with high self-esteem don&#8217;t just face-plant and sulk. They own failure, study it, and squeeze every last drop of learning from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here&#8217;s how high self-esteem folks and low self-esteem folks stack up when it comes to failure:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>84% of high self-esteem people are comfortable admitting mistakes (vs. 36% of the low SE group).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>73% believe success isn&#8217;t everything\u2014doing your best matters more (vs. 22%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>89% see value in improving their weaknesses (vs. 53%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>89% welcome feedback, even when it&#8217;s negative (vs. 48%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>91% view failure as a cue to try harder, not a reason to quit (vs. 64%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For people with low self-esteem&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>71% of low self-esteem people believe failure makes them an inferior person (vs. just 6% of high SE).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>66% think a single mistake will cost them other people&#8217;s respect (vs. 5%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>81% say criticism makes them feel incompetent (vs. 4%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">People with high self-esteem treat failure like stepping on a Lego: it hurts for a second, but then you figure out how to avoid it next time. They see mistakes as lessons, not life sentences\u2014and they&#8217;re not afraid to ask for help, try again, or grab some extra training if that&#8217;s what it takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Low self-esteem folks don&#8217;t just step on the Lego\u2014they tattoo it on their foot. Instead of seeing failure as a bump in the road, they merge it into their identity: &#8220;I failed at this, therefore I AM a failure.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Everybody messes up\u2014a lot. Even the people who look perfect on Instagram. Mistakes are how we do better\u2014it&#8217;s the same process we all went through as kids learning to walk. Without the falls, there&#8217;s no standing tall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coaching helps bridge confidence gaps, teaching people to see mistakes as stepping stones instead of stop signs. It&#8217;s not about avoiding failure\u2014it&#8217;s about bouncing back faster and smarter. <a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/ilonajerabek\/20-min-discovery-call-360-with-dr-ilona-jerabek\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Book<\/a> a 20-minute coaching consultation to learn more about individual, group, and leadership coaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High self-esteem won&#8217;t stop failure, but it will help you grow from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotional-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":740,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94\/revisions\/740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archprofile.com\/archprofile_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}