Why do I feel like a failure?

I am currently a sophomore at a college that has very high standards, everyone I am around is doing much better then me in school and no matter how much time I put in, how much I study, I can't seem to get my grades up.

I think people with depression or other mental illnesses feel like failures because they think the bar should be as high as someone that is high functioning. Sometimes just getting up and taking a shower is impressive. Yet it is minimized. We are all doing the best we can with the skills we have.

Investigate the possible reasons. Perhaps at some point in your life, people have made you feel inferior. This could include people who are meant to support you with loving care, such as parents, friends, or teachers. Your environment can be overly stressful and put impossible expectations on you. Remind yourself that you cannot be made to feel inferior by someone else without your permission. Perhaps you don't give yourself enough credit for you accomplishments! Don't berate yourself for things that seem like the end of the world are really not. Don't fall into the trap of the all-or-nothing mentality. Just because you didn't win gold or didn't score as well as you wanted on that test doesn't mean you're a failure. You've overcome many adversities and come out a better person than you were before. Not everyone wins all of the time. Expecting to be the best can lead to self-doubt and won't do anything positive for your self-esteem! Remember that nobody is perfect. The girl with the supermodel body has her off-days where she snacks on unhealthy food and feels guilty about it later. The boy with straight-As is as stressed about exams as you are! You might be seeing through rose-tinted glasses when looking at other people, but zooming in on your flaws when you turn the lens onto yourself. Be careful not to magnify other people's accomplishments and minimize your own achievements. Don't defend and justify other people's mistakes and beat yourself up for being just as imperfect as they are! Identify those who have a positive relationship with you, those that make you feel good about yourself, and ask them about your strengths/weaknesses. They're the people who know you the best, and they like you for a reason! Let them know that you are struggling to feel worthy, and they'll tell you why you're such an awesome person!

because thoughts about what-if's and could-have's still haunt you. Trust that you are a work in progress and what's important is that you will get there someday.

Feeling of a failure . It is such a feeling which only a loser can feel. There are exactly three consequence of a task . If you succeed you are a WINNER, if you failed then either you become a LEARNER or a LOSER. Even a small insect like spider when does not accepts its failed attempt of climbing a wall or tree or whatever it may, if such a small creature doesnt lose hope then being the one of the most intelligent species in this world isn't it an act of shame to feel like a failure just because our plan did not workout the last time. It's never too late. If you want to change and succeed , it just takes few minutes of your life to change. A single day itself is enough to bring changes within you. Believe in yourself people .

People discouraging you or not praising you, not having many friends, not being able to do or practice what you really like can lead you to feeling that. But hey, always know, you're not a failure!

I think feeling like a failure is a common thing to experience. Of course, we would rather not feel like we have failed, but I, personally, try to see my failures as opportunities for learning, for growth in some area of my life. Someone once said that, "There are no failures - just experiences and your reactions to them.” With that said... it still hurts and will hurt, but the question is, will you try to see the positive side of those failures or allow them to keep you down, crippled to moving forward authentically, courageously, into the future.

Some people feel like a failure because they compare their self to others. Each person is unique starting from the day we are conceived. Many people do not take that into consideration, that some babies in the womb have a nice peaceful, secure and nutritious environment while others may have their environment plagued by loud scary sounds, drugs, alcohol, and lack of the necessary vitamins to produce optimal health. These are the extreme differences, but what about just the genetic differences of having different parents, grandparents, great grandparents, all of whom contributed to your DNA helping you be the person that you are. It can effect your temperament, intelligence, physical abilities, possible addictions you may be susceptible to (such as alcoholism) your facial features, your height , musical talent, artistic talent and so many other things about you. Even in the same family, siblings are not carbon copies of each other, in less they are identical twins, but even in that case, although identical looking and having similar likes and dislikes, identical twins still have a mind of their own. You can only feel like a failure if you expect to have talents and personal qualities that are not compatible to your DNA, social or cultural exposure and have no ability to learn them and overcome the obstacles that you feel hold you back from what you want to be successful in. There are many people who have overcome by perseverance and a desire to be more and do more. Abraham Lincoln was one of those people, Albert Einstein was another. Neither compared themselves to other people, they succeeded in their uniqueness. Would you consider Mother Teresa a success or Ghandi, neither wanted wealth or fame and both struggled materialistically knowing hunger, cold and other types of deprivation, yet they were successful in their achieving their goals. You can only feel like a failure if you define success on the terms of someone else's abilities, instead of your own. We are not failures in this life, we are all students of our own circumstances and sometimes the things we learn and the success we have cannot be quantified in real world terms, but only in our hearts and minds.

Human beings cannot do everything. We cannot complete everything. We sometimes don't do what we need to. We sometimes fail. We feel like failures because we beat ourselves down. You are not a failure, no matter if you failed or not.

There are a lot of reasons to feel like you have failed. In the case of depression, I've felt that it's really hard to see the good things. You just keep finding evidence that you're not worth it. People don't notice that you're emaciated inside, and so they're not there to tell you how amazing you are. And when they do... you just keep finding evidence against that. "Well if I'm such a talented actor... why didn't I get the role?" "If I'm so smart... why am I doing poorly in all of my classes?" "If I'm a catch, then why has everyone rejected me?" These are personal thoughts that I've had. There's been research on this called the "negativity bias", where negative things are more apparent than the positive. And depression doesn't help the situation. The thing is, everyone fails... people just kinda deal with it differently. And when you've experienced failure after failure, sometimes it's too exhausting and it's easy to extrapolate from your given data and determine that you're always going to fail. If my stats teacher ever taught me anything... extrapolation is really unreliable.