After a failure, everyone feels that they are going to lose their confidence and motivation. But in a long run a failure won't matter that much.
According to theory of alternate timelines, small changes in the past will cause the timeline to split and diverge into multiple timelines, but at a certain point in future all these timelines will converge to a single timeline.
What I mean to say is even if I loose huge ratings, eventually I would have the same rating even if I hadn't given the contest. So we shouldn't worry about our performances rather we should yearn for the experiences.
Basically, we should give room to failures, because it makes us stronger and it makes the eventual success that much sweeter.
PS :- the theory is just from an anime :P but it gives a bright outlook.