When confronted with failure, what can you do?

I'm not talking about small "failures", where something just didn't turn out how you thought it would and the consequences are negligible. I'm talking about the type of failure that shakes you, scares you, and makes you wonder how or why... This is the type of failure where getting told that "the important thing is that you tried" makes you annoyed/angry. Why? Because while trying/taking risks is important, the statement doesn't tell you what to do with the broken pieces, the lost investments, and the feeling of aimlessness.

There was a time in my young adulthood when I experienced such a failure, and in my search for answers I came across this thought:

"It's not your failures that define you, it's how you deal with them".

Many people experience failure; it's often a consequence of taking risks-- trying, pursuing, reaching, hoping, putting yourself out there... When you want something really badly and don't achieve, it can be very difficult to accept or understand. But the important thing is to not focus on the failure. What distinguishes successful people from unsuccessful people is not that they've never failed--because they probably have at some point-- it's that they don't let failure prevent them from moving forward in a productive way towards their goals. Instead of dwelling on failure, it's more helpful--and therapeutic-- to focus on how you're going to overcome it.

I wish I could remember where I read it or who told me this; regardless, I took the message to heart and it really helped me get through a tough moment in my life. It's sometimes difficult to not be negative, but the hole you're in seems worse when you're looking down.