To ask what’s been your biggest failure in life, and what (if anything) you learned from it?

[ForFlakySloth]

I’m interested to hear from others about setbacks or moments that didn’t go as planned. We all have those times we wish we could redo or just handle differently. What’s been your biggest failure in life? Did you take any lessons from it, or did it change how you approach things now?

I’d love to know if anyone else has had similar experiences and how you’ve moved forward.

Weight loss surgery, ruined my life.

I would have been absolutely delighted, joined in enthusiastically and instantly wanted to be your best friend.

May I ask why if you feel comfortable to share? A close friend of mine is considering this.

Not realising my self worth. Being a people pleaser both in my family and at work. I've been massively used in my life because I had no confidence in my own abilities. I have a total lack of self esteem which still haunts me.

I've put various members of my family 's needs ahead of mine meaning I don't really have a home to call my own. My work colleagues have used my work to enhance their businesses. But I'm completely at fault, I let them.

I think you sound great. You would be in my non cool friendship group. Honestly, there's loads of excellent non cool funny people.

Include me in the list of ppl wanting to be your friend.

Moving back to Cornwall (the land of no opportunity)

Getting into Debt. Over and over again. And no, i've never learned.

I wish I'd realised earlier on that my moods and behaviour weren't 'just me' but could have been at least tempered by getting into relaxation, meditation, CBT and so on. I definitely failed to be the parent I wanted to be at times, but I don't beat myself up too badly now, just have wistful thoughts that I could have been a little better.

I've made loads of mistakes but they've all been rectifiable or led me somewhere else etc. Other than getting pregnant by a man who became abusive. Even though I left with baby, it had a devastating impact initially and shaped the whole next 18 years in some way as I am tied by a court order (court order worth its weight in gold).

I have told my DC the decision who to have a child with is one of the most important of your life. I learnt loads of other things along the way out and through, including finding mumsnet. But if it was one thing thAt would be it.

How so? Would you like to tell us how?

I married a man I got together with as a child. Now 40 and I don't think he particularly likes me, loves and cares for me in the most part but there's little joy.

I did something pretty bad at work. It was a sackable offence but I was allowed to resign. Even so, it meant moving on was difficult to say the least: it was obvious something had been amiss and it took me five years to get back to where I’d been career wise and in that time there was a lot of pain and heartache. My dad died the week after I lost my job and I’m pretty sure the stress caused it. I’ll never totally forgive myself.

I could be you! This made me laugh but not at you, Don’t worry, she probably thought that you were the cool one! 💐

Please don’t let the fact you haven’t got a degree stop you applying for roles.

Not sure of your industry but I work in tech as a manager and the most important things to me are attitude and approach to the work. A degree is fine but equivalent experience either professional or personal offsets the need for this.

I wish I had learnt to speak French when my parents took me to France every year.
Can't speak a word of it.

Finding a career that I actually love. I have always done what has the most prospects, although I have failed in that too as I would be a lot better off had I taken a job in London in the 90's or not settled for a lesser job when I had children.

I came from a fairly impoverished and unstable background so the bar for success was low. As with other PP, the upside of this is that I don’t really have any big failures to speak of as my life now is worlds away from what it was growing up. However I do have a divorce behind me and spend a large part of my early adulthood feeling beholden to others and responsible for their happiness. Lessons learned there are to not let anyone walk all over me, advocate for myself and only surround myself with people who bring the same energy to relationships that I do. This has got easier as I have got older, my circle is small, but it is solid.

Becoming a teacher and not doing something that makes money.

Left a really good job where they were very keen on me to marry someone from a different continent. Disastrous and very short marriage. I would have loved just to go back to my job and pick up where I left off ( and I found out later they really wanted me) but I thought I would be a laughing stock.

I now realise that most people don’t really care about other peoples’ lives, or not for long. My ‘marriage’ would have been a seven day water cooler wonder, and then it would have been replaced by the art director’s arrest for dangerous driving. I’ve learnt how to face gossip down - and that it isn’t always necessary.

I have so many.

I was very smart at school and my family encouraged me to go into a scientific field because it would make me employable. I didn't really gel with my degree subject and just felt really guilty about not loving it, rather than being pragmatic and finding something else.

I got into a relationship with a manipulative, abusive arsehole when I was 20-ish and stayed with him for 6 years because I genuinely thought he was the best person I had ever met.

I made unwise career decisions because of that relationship. I was actually quite successful and well paid in a technical role, but found it stressful and unfulfilling.

I quit to retrain to work in the NHS. I was really proud to have got onto a very competitive paid training program, but now I'm close to qualifying and there are no jobs (like 2 in the whole of Scotland) because of big service cuts and I'm really scared. And my CV looks really weird because I moved field and started from scratch.

I put off having children for a few years because of the career change and the abusive relationship. Now I have a 2yo DS but I'm over 35, just had a missed miscarriage and am scared I left it too late to give him a sibling.

I don't know what I've learned from all this. On the one hand, I had a far from ideal start in life, have done lots of really interesting things, got myself out of shitty situations and made a good success of lots of things. I'm married to a good man, I have a child and I'm nearly in the career I wanted. But I also feel like I played my hand as hard as I could and it still wasn't quite enough.

Oh, I could have written most of this- I really relate. I am not an ideas person, not a creative. I do well with repetitive tasks where I’m really clear on what is expected of me. I have realised I often struggle with abstract ideas. When learning something new, I need to SEE a physical demonstration or a model or diagram that makes things really clear. I’m interested in your job and wondering if I could do something like it. I absolutely love spreadsheets so if they’re involved, even better 😂 My job now is teaching fitness classes which I love, but it’s PT, only about 12-15 hours a week and I would be interested in taking on some more work. (Teaching fitness classes doesn’t require me to be particularly creative or come up with new ideas because there are quite specific formats to work to and most of the classes I teach are packaged products so it’s just a case of learning choreography, which I can do very easily, and delivering to the class).

I would be very grateful if you could tell me the best way to find out about jobs like yours @loropianalover!

I did something very stupid which could have ruined my career. Luckily it didn't, and actually it indirectly caused me to meet future dh. However, although there were no long-term bad consequences to teach me a lesson, I did take stock of my life a bit afterwards and made sone beneficial changes.

My biggest failure in life was something beyond my control.
Ill try to condense it.
Son born 37 weeks after waters breaking at 20 weeks, I knew he was very unwell. Kept being turned away (covid times) so kept going to a&e. Consultant called me a neurotic first time mum. I refused to leave. He took very unwell that night, they finally listened. Transferred to childrens hospital at 6 weeks where surgery found a very rare cleft type on his larynx.
Now for the failure. I lost all trust in everyone. Every normal childhood illness I was convinced he would die. For 18 months, completely convinced he would die any moment. I was having therapy at the time as i recognised my anxiety.
I was then referred to social services, case closed as fast as it was open (although it almost killed me) but it’s landed me with the anxious mum tag and now nobody takes me seriously.
IF I could go back in time, I would have still fought for my son when he was unwell but stopped there. I wish I could have realised that ONE doctor made a mistake, not every doctor. And that is my biggest fail.

I failed to understand that my unstable family life and poverty weren't my fault. It led me to be bullied terribly as a teen. It led to an awful marriage but I thought I was so ugly and useless I should put up with it. I wish I had realised I was ordinary ,not gorgeous but perfectly OK. Even at my advanced age I hate mixing with people ,hate my looks and won't look in a mirror. I buy clothes and try them on but never wear them because I never go out if I can help it . Subconsciously I still believe the bullies although I know they were wrong. I never wanted to be anything special but just feel acceptable . For example ,I was ( reluctantly) in a shop today . I was wearing jeans ,breton shirt and a gilet. Some girls were behind me and I heard one say " honestly ,would you wear that?" I instantly felt sick! They were a quarter of my age and I didn't even know them . It quickly became apparent that they were looking at photos of a Halloween event!
And yet ,last week I was looking at some old photos with my brother and saw a very pretty girl in 70s clothes . It was me. Of course I thought it was just a flattering picture. I wish we could all realise we are okay as we are. Probably too late for me but I wish I had known .