FAILURE
Failure is inevitable. It is something that all of us will experience at some time in our lives. Nobody likes failure, we can all be too hard on ourselves and when we experience failure this just seems to confirm those harsh views of ourselves that we carry.
Failure feels very personal, it points out our shortcomings, or brings those insecurities that we keep to ourselves right out into the limelight. It bruises our ego and puts pressure on us to always be on top of our game.
All of this aside, one thing we can all be sure of is that every one of us, at some point, will fail. Whether it is in our personal or our professional lives, we will fail. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, failure is actually, very good for us. It may not feel like it, but failure teaches us to do better and our ability to admit to our failings demonstrates to others that we are skilled in persistence, resilience, humility and learning amongst other things.
It is thanks to failure that we were able to learn most of the things that we are now successful in; we certainly didn’t learn to walk without falling, or ride a bike without taking a tumble – why should we expect to learn or do anything else without the odd slip up?!
Maybe, instead of looking at failure as a negative, we should teach ourselves to look at its positives. Embrace failure and see it as a learning opportunity; a chance to retry and do things differently? We can make failure work for us in these ways but it means acknowledging our mistake and trying again.
How we deal with failure is rooted in our own self-worth and opinion of ourselves, not our achievements or what others think. Here are some useful tips to help you to deal with failure, they have been useful for me and hopefully will be for you too:
1) Accept how you feel,
2) Admit the failure and the part that you have played in it to those affected (if any) and face any consequences that arise from it.
3) Remind yourself that just because this happened today, it doesn’t mean the same will happen tomorrow.
4) Talk it over with a friend, mentor, support group, business or life coach. This helps us to put it into perspective and enables us to think it through logically.
5) Move forward from it. Failure happens to everyone, don’t focus on it and don’t let it hold you back or stop you from retrying.
6) If you do keep focusing on it, or if it is something in particular that you continue to struggle with – ask for help. There is no shame in admitting that you need help and in fact that help you get may be the very thing that helps you to be successful the next time.
Next time you have a setback, aim to follow these steps and see if you can use the lesson that it teaches to inspire you to succeed; give it another go - you’ve got this!