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Most of us have heard about “formulas for success.” Thinkers in business, finance, health, relationships, and life all describe them differently. However, at their core, many formulas are reduced to patterns of behaviour and mindset.
In sport, for example, Michael Jordan, considered the greatest basketball player of all time, relied on a combination of failure, relentless practice, competitiveness, and treating setbacks as learning opportunities for his ultimate success. Similarly, Oprah Winfrey, influential media personality and businesswoman, attributes her successful journey to hard work, authenticity, self-investment, embracing mistakes, and giving back to the world. Even simpler everyday formulas, such as small steps + consistency + maintaining a growth mindset are expected to result in big rewards.
Despite these ideas, many of us find ourselves returning to familiar ground, often in the opposite direction of our goals. It can feel frustrating, disheartening, and confusing, as if all of our time and efforts were wasted. But these moments carry a quiet significance; they reveal recurring cycles of behaviour and mindset that tend to steer us back to square one. So perhaps the focus shouldn’t only be about reaching success, but also about noticing our own tendencies that pull us back: our formulas for failure.
In this blog, the concept of “failure” isn’t about falling short, proving to be incapable, or making a mistake. Failure is defined here as the act of being consistently prevented from achieving our goals.
If the cycles that hold us back are clues, it would help to notice them by paying attention to where things tend to stall or unravel for us. In relationships, for instance, unhelpful patterns might appear in the kinds of people we are drawn to. One formula for failure could look like:
Loneliness + attraction to unhealthy familiarity + ignoring red flags + staying and hoping they’ll change
= another relationship where you feel unworthy of love.
Other patterns show up in moments we unconsciously sabotage connection:
Fear of vulnerability + overthinking + being critical and defensive + pushing people away
= rejection and regret.
With regards to career, similar patterns emerge as repeated missed opportunities, self-doubt, or a tendency to retreat just when progress seems possible. A formula for failure here might be:
Playing it safe/avoid taking risks + hoping efforts will be recognised + waiting for a promotion
= stagnation.
These patterns we fall into aren’t signs of a character flaw, but rather hints about the formulas quietly guiding our choices without us being fully aware. Observing them can be both confronting and illuminating as they reveal our habits, fears, and beliefs that shape outcomes before any conscious decision has been made. The objective is to admit with complete honesty that “this is how I often show up” without needing to fix it immediately.
Reflection, in this sense, becomes a space of curiosity rather than judgment. It is a chance to notice what tends to recur, to sit with the same old patterns in dating, work, relationships, and life more broadly, and simply acknowledge them. Some of the most interesting discoveries happen not in triumph but in noticing the repeated unwanted returns. So instead of pushing blindly and even more forcefully toward “success”, let’s redirect by reflecting on the moments when things didn’t go according to plan. Finding your formula for failure isn’t about self-blame or shame; it is about seeing the map of your own behaviour so that you can then actively choose your new path – one that leads away from repetition and toward personal and emotional growth.