how to cope with failing to achieve a really important goal

Answer:

practise eqanimity. That is, accepting that life is unpredictable, and we don’t always got what we want – despite trying really, really hard.

Accepting that “we live life forwards but we make sense of it looking backwards.”

Accepting that good can come out of bad – if we approach it the right way.

Read this insightful article that explains how we grow from failure:

Whatever happened to “what might have been? Regrets, happiness and Maturity. King, LA and Hicks, JA, American Psychologist, October 2007, p 625

http://7423609154649374820-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/joshuahicks/documents/King%26HicksAP.pdf?attachauth=ANoY7cqeiopr0AeELvs95V2AFy5e4hKbUXCxsdipO0KgrkrDWwWGor10tIsqTmx20IdLDNtdHQnprkKUQ-tNueKq3HIMYd1KUPZXjZ4yizvhVFipRq8ZOklaKgrtQ0q9gZS-dN5EJPo8nlj5n2hI6aQfK5Nqa6S3Qz94gL_lkj6N5C2FBRThSX_ap3eFcpdvRaUOv7OnzFkn6kEB_3SXwvWkEbqFvYN14g%3D%3D&attredirects=0