Overcome compulsion by facing failure head on with courage.
There are many disappointments while fighting to overcome compulsive behavior. You might even end up blaming God for your failure. Asking him questions like “Why is life so unfair?”, or “Why does He doesn’t seem to be listening to the prayers of those who are sincerely begging for help”?

In a world of competition, when you pray to God for your personal success, there are more people out there praying for your failure. It is the course of nature! So it is part of life and we all have to face it but how can we face it with courage and see failure as a learning rather than an label on our personality.

Failure is a viewpoint, a disparity between what one is capable of and what one has actually done. You see the lacking rather than the attempt. The glass is half empty.

In order not to suffer beatings from failure, set realistic goals. Small goals can give a boast to your dignity. Even a small success is a big one if you cherish it.

There are times you still fall off the track, do not quit, but be sympathetic to yourself. Allow yourself to fail; it is an acceptable part of learning. Don’t make a big deal out of it. Focus on the goal, not the failure. Examine what caused you to fail and come up with ideas to prevent it from happening again. Beating yourself up with guilt will just be inflict useless self-punishment. There is no way you can go back in time, so keep moving! Feel regret, then build the desire to change. Feel bad about the decision, then make a decision and move on to your goals. Thomas Edison, did not simply come to a point of thinking that tungsten would be the perfect filament for the incandescent bulb. Success came after nearly a thousand attempts, or 999 failures. Sylvester Stallone, was denied when he requested support from Warner Brothers on his first Rambo. He loaned some funds and produced it by himself. The result? Five movies and endless Rambo repeats on every channel. TV for Real Men. Sheer determination accompanies success.

If you fail, encourage yourself. Think of the things that you have accomplished.

Blowing is part of the process of learning how to do it correctly. You are not a failure. You have come so far and accomplished so much! Bear in mind that their is never a wrong decision. It is by failure that you come to know what is right. Life is like singing Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way”. The song is never wrong, just a bit out of tune. A planet slightly deviated from orbit. With extra effort, you will be back on track.

Fight those feelings of worthlessness. Consider God’s love for you. Feel the forgiveness of a Father’s love. Forgive yourself. Apologize to God for being so miserable and not asking for His help. Thank Him for your failures and the chance to learn.

Rebuild your desire to try again. Look at all the benefits. Come on, you can do it! When you are faced with a seemingly horrendous obstacle, consider them as a challenge. Challenges build paths to a sweet victory. The fulfillment brought about by winning a contest against a hundred participants is great but cannot be paralleled by winning ……

Intense feelings of failure and guilt intensify compulsive behavior. To stop compulsive behavior, you need to stop excessive feelings of guilt and failure.

When Edison was criticized for his many failures at making a light bulb, he replied that he had found thousands of ways on how not to make a light bulb. It wasn’t the one success that created the light bulb, but the thousands of failures it took to discover what didn’t work. Every success is achieved by learning from failure.

You will fail. It is part of life. It is inevitable. Are you ready to face failure? Ready to face it not once, but several times? Are you ready to pick yourself up and go on with the battle? Most don’t; they give up when they are at the closest point to success. But everything worthwhile takes time, investment and facing failure. Nothing worth gaining is gained without facing failure. Failure is a doorway. You need to be ready to go through it.
Failure is devastating if you have low self-worth. Parental criticism drove home demeaning messages: “you idiot, you blew it again.” Feeling like a failure, we engage in self-flagellation, beating ourselves up and making endless apologies. We become focused on not failing instead of achieving.

Fear of failure is a terrible motivator. Instead, it will cause failure. When we do fail, it proves to us that we are a failure and we believe it even more. But you are not a failure. Every human makes mistakes. Why should you be any different? Making mistakes proves that you’re not perfect. We learn by our mistakes. They are a part of life.

Guilt Increases Compulsive Behavior

Guilt is anger directed inward, like a shotgun blasting pellets of blame at every part of our character. It screams, “you’re always blowing it.” It reminds you of all your other failures. You beat yourself up because you failed to meet some unrealistic expectation of yourself in a desperate attempt to regain control.

On the other hand, remorse or regret is good. It is good to feel badly about what we have done, see it as wrong, and want to change. Guilt ruins self-worth, but regret leads to change and growth. Guilt reinforces your belief that you are a “bad” person. Regret focuses on the behavior.

Guilt has a powerful effect on our thinking and emotions. When we feel guilty, we become sensitive and defensive. We close off to stop being hurt more. But although we have withdrawn, we have not changed. So guilt is really a cover-up because we never get to the point of feeling bad about what we did and taking responsibility. Guilt allows us to stay the same.

Regret works. Regret a bad choice. See it as a mistake. Become intent never to make that mistake again. You are not a failure because you made a mistake. You have made many good choices in your life. This wasn’t one of them. Feel bad for a few minutes because of the benefits you lost. Grieve the loss quickly, refocus on your goals then move on. Getting enthused about your goals is infinitely more effective than beating yourself up with guilt. The past is the past, but our future is bright in Christ.

Biblical Perspective

Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead.
Philippians 3:13