In my experience, there are two key things that cause people to feel failure, and to quit.
The first is identity - it's your story about yourself, and the standards you have for yourself. When someone's objective contact with reality diverges from their self-identity in a negative way, they often quit hard before there's too much undeniable proof that they're not as good as they thought they were. That's an extremely common point of personal failure. They don't get the result they want, and it screws with their sense of self in very bad ways.
And this is related to the second point of failure - whether they're process oriented, or outcome oriented. If they're outcome oriented, they typically quit when that undeniable contact with reality diverges from the outcome they expected - especially when it doesn't match with how they see themselves.
With outcome-oriented people, the source of satisfaction is external - and it is usually related to what other people will think of their outcome. The locus of satisfaction is the approval of others. It can be motivating for them, but powerfully demotivating too if there's too much risk of being seen as lesser if they don't get the outcome they want. Outcome-oriented people only really feel happiness while the shine of achievement is on them...but then it goes away after the accomplishment.
Being process-oriented is about focusing on the journey and dialing in on processes, values, and habits that enhance your capabilities over time, independent of the outcome of any one event. Finding the insights and lessons that move you forward, and quite often sharing it with others to help them move forward too. Experiencing the deep satisfaction of accomplishment with every step of the journey. The source of the satisfaction is internal.
Outcome wants the big buck to post in instagram, process wants to eventually master the journey as a part the satisfaction of mastering themselves.
You can tell the process-oriented hunters in posts above, talking about the mindset shift of looking at every day with an unfilled tag from passed-up smaller bucks as learning opportunities, and experiencing each day on the mountain pursuing a big buck as part of feeling more alive.
Incredibly well said.
As an anecdote of support for "embracing the process" I'll share a tidbit from one of the close mentors I had early on, back when the thought of killing A mountain buck, let alone THE mountain buck seemed like landing on the moon:
I first saw him round a ridge hauling in his camp from about a quarter mile away. Observing through my binos, he seemed almost robotic. He picked his way off trail into a small thicket of trees high on a bench and disappeared for a few minutes. When he popped out he made his way over to fill his water stores for the week, took inventory of his food stashes, set out his gear to dry in the sun, and went back into the thicket to set his camp. Not his first rodeo, obvious even from a distance.
Seeing another dude this far in, that had obviously been there before, made me pick my way over to say hello and make sure we wouldn't be stepping on each other's toes.
After a little chit chat and both of us feeling out how much info the stranger in the basin was worthy of divulging, I learned he was up there to punch his 10th tag in as many years on a WA high buck muley. For those of you who know anything about the high hunt, you realize that's a really big accomplishment.
I think he likely saw a bit of his young self in me at 22, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and was also a little sympathetic to my bare bones gear load out, so he invited me to glass with him that evening and show me some good spots I should hunt in the future.
We laugh about it now because apparently I had 1 million questions for him about hunting tips for big bucks, his rifle setup, binos, tent, etc. but he patiently advised me on all fronts while looking over a bowl full of does.
The BEST piece of advice he gave, and one that has been reiterated by all the big buck hunters I've met since was, "embrace the process". Make a routine....fetch water, stack wood, cook food, fortify your camp/shelter, choose the basins you are glassing at first/last light, plan your routes to those spots etc...enjoy every second of it, AND do it all with intent and mindfulness. If you pour your effort into the little things, because you see them as crucial parts of achieving success, rather than simply a means to an end, you can really accomplish a lot...and do a great job keeping those longing-for-home/wife/shower/food thoughts at bay.
Guys sleep in, snooze their alarms, skip meals, skimp on water, tell themselves they'll just cut wood when they need it, head back to camp before dark etc....but every single one of those actions cheats the process, and justifies you to wing it even more.
Discipline on the mountain to stick to my game plan put me on the fast track to killing mature bucks regularly, and basically eradicated the early endings barring some sort of catastrophic weather situation.
The day you find as much satisfaction in humping a weeks worth of water up a cliff to start a hunt as you do from dumping a big buck is when the big bucks are in serious trouble.
