Exploring the Male Experience of Failure and Worthlessness

I know this feeling personally and keep hearing it from successful male clients.

It sounds something like this:

When I’m wrong, mess up, or fail, I feel like a complete loser, failure, fraud, and worthless as a man.

All these men have different responses to this feeling; some work harder, some get angry and defensive, others overcompensate in other areas, and some sink into shame, anxiety, or depression. But at the end of the day, the core feeling seems similar.

When men mess up, we seem to internalize it as who we are, not something we did or something that happened.

I’m not going to assume women also don’t feel like this, yet it seems to come up much more often with male business clients but also is shared in couples coaching sessions by female partners about their male counterparts.

It works like this: if we lose a game, we don’t just lose a game; we are a loser. If we can’t make money or blow a deal, we don’t just lose money or blow a deal. We are worthless.

I believe this happens because, as men, we have been conditioned to attach who we are to what we do. Our actions equate to our identity. Our sense of self is narrow because we aren’t emotionally connected to ourselves, so other factors determine our sense of self. Because of this disconnection from emotions, actions weigh more heavily. So when our efforts and activities don’t succeed, we naturally become the results.

This way of thinking is harmful, dangerous, isolating, and sad. Even when our actions are successful, the wins and the high we feel and attach to our identity are short-lived. We must produce bigger and better results, again and again, to continue to feel good about ourselves or recognize ourselves in that flattering light. It puts us on an accomplishment or achievement hampster wheel.

We, as men, must learn to understand who we are through other avenues. We can still produce results and enjoy action, but we must not allow it to be the determining factor of our identity.

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Previously Published on alexterranova.com and is republished on Medium.

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