"personal defeat" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to describe a situation where someone has failed at achieving a personal goal or has been overcome by the opposition. For example: "The candidate felt a deep sense of personal defeat after losing the election."
Mr. Wallace's political path ultimately led to bitter personal defeat.
A Pres. who is willing to face personal defeat is a Pres.
In his memoir, Mr. Chertok called the American moon landing a "personal defeat" for his country.
The end of a gruellingly personalised contest has ended in a very personal defeat.
He has not suffered a humiliating personal defeat as Clegg has in the AV referendum.
When he threw an incomplete pass, he would take it as a personal defeat.
But although the resignation was related to a series of painful personal defeats, Benedict's act was expected to resonate through history.
Irwin makes the provocative argument, too, that the seemingly throwaway Pat Hobby stories, tales of a rapscallion screenwriter, dramatize the "authority of failure" — Fitzgerald's phrase for what his personal defeats had earned him; Hemingway, he thought, wrote with the "authority of success" — and let Fitzgerald see beyond the ideologies of his time.
Physicians may have difficulty acknowledging personal errors because they can be experienced as personal defeats and thus confirm that physicians are vulnerable [ 20, 24].
Once you stop being personal about defeat, the defeat gets defeated and you get positivity in your mind.
Such great success at so many Gotham publications over the last four decades ought to translate into a winning book filled with tales of personal glory, defeats, payback and lessons learned.
