Building Career Resilience Amid Failure: 5 Insights from Angela Pereira Saafigueroa

It can be a job interview, passion project, or promotion—no matter what, if we don’t reach our initial goal, we may automatically revert to harsh self-criticism and think of how we could have done better. It takes a lot of humility to say we failed.

But what if we reframed our mindset and perceived failure in a more positive light? What if one closed door leads to five other unexpected opportunities that take us further and higher? 

When it doesn’t, how can we adapt accordingly so our future attempts gradually lead to success? 

We had the pleasure of speaking with Angela Pereira Saafigueroa, Owner, Therapist, and Clinical Supervisor of Heart of Amber Therapy LLC. With an extensive, decade-long career in mental health treatment, she guides clients through various life barriers and empowers their every step. 

Here are her insights on career resilience.

1. What are some common reactions for someone who has struggled with an unforeseen challenge?

“Personally, I’ve experienced guilt, shame, embarrassment, and more difficult emotions. When I’m faced with something completely unpredictable, it's definitely a barrier, right? I tend to lean into defense mode and feel like a victim in these situations. I’ve worked with clients who are similar, but have also reacted with the other extreme of it, where sometimes it’s more, I’m fearful of showing any vulnerability here. I want to appear like I can handle anything.

When we go in this direction, or either direction, we’re setting ourselves up. We’re feeding into a part of us that might be slightly people pleasing. But, to be fair, even if we have those tendencies, I think we’ve always had the ability to lean into challenges and stay emotionally safe at the same time. It’s a hard reality to sit with, because it means we have to sit in the gray, and that’s not comfortable.”

2. How can women find the courage to take career risks after facing disappointment? 

“Taking our risks and being vulnerable at the same time seems unrealistic; we think they can’t coexist. But they truly, truly can. If I don’t think I can be vulnerable by taking the risk, then it must mean that I’m supposed to be completely fine with whatever decision I’ve made, and I have to suffer the consequences if it were a ‘bad decision.’ 

But the reality is, with vulnerability, uncertainty can actually be our best friend. When we allow vulnerability to be a part of this journey with us, we’re allowing ourselves to validate the tough choices we’re making, and then we can feel more comfortable in the gray that we talked about. 

We can allow ourselves to be sensitive and emotional beings as we are and still be willing to take that leap of faith.”

3. How do we practice vulnerability in the workplace?

“We’ve been conditioned to believe that even in corporate settings, we have to pull it together—but that has not been effective. If history has taught us anything, this is not a practical way to even be in a corporate setting. It’s quite unfair for women to be placed with such an expectation when men are also emotional beings, and have expressed it so. We’re all cognizant of the difference in treatment and expectation.

Engaging in more emotional regulation…managing difficult feelings and allowing them to show up tells us we can still advocate for ourselves in a direct, assertive way and use interpersonal effectiveness skills to be successful. 

Vulnerability allows us to say, I’m really struggling, and here’s why.”

4. How can women redefine failure?

“Our rational mind can put together, I’m not going to be successful at everything. I’m going to fail at some point, at something. Our emotional mind doesn’t agree. It perceives failure as long-term pain and suffering that we can’t bear or survive. It may also perceive failure as, if I fail at this, people I care about will leave me. I’m going to disappoint those I care about most if I don’t do well. 

Anxiety and fear tend to be frequent visitors when failure shows up. If we can view anxiety and fear as a way to protect us, we can lean into those difficult emotions with some compassion and say, I see you’re trying to protect me from something I don’t need protection from. I can still feel, regulate, experience, and sit here with you. We can survive and grow from it.

Evolve with anxiety and fear, as opposed to resisting and fighting it…”

5. What are some practical tips for prioritizing self-compassion and career resilience? 

“We’re never truly taught in childhood how to be nice to ourselves. We’ve always rolled with the assumption that, well, if I’m nice to my environment, the people around me will treat me the same. 

We’ve learned that that’s not effective. We’ve learned that being nice to ourselves first can let people know how we want to be treated. Self-compassion encompasses three different elements: 

• Common humanity. Acknowledge your experiences and emotions are universal. 
• Self-kindness. It’s essentially offering yourself grace based on how you’re feeling. 
• Mindfulness. It’s being aware of the discomfort that comes with whatever is happening. 

Just because we fall short in how we think and talk about ourselves doesn’t always mean we have to fully believe what we’re feeling. A way to be more practical with self-compassion is to identify the beliefs we have about ourselves and how they’re serving us. 

You hear a lot of people talking about inner-child work, inner-child healing…we can utilize some of those same types of interventions to shift how we talk to ourselves. Some applications can be:

• What would my younger self tell me about this? 
• What would I want my younger self to know? 
• What would my younger self need right now?

It’s going to bring a lot of discomfort, but we’re all worthy and deserving. We can all change and do differently. There’s a space for all of us here.”

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