“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” are the words of one of the greatest inventors in history, Thomas Edison, who also thought that “many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
In life, failure is inevitable. There’s always going to be that interview we mess up, that partner who leaves us, that job we got fired from or the promotion we missed out on, or that business and purchase that didn’t work out.
But here’s the thing. Everyone you look at today who is successful has been precisely where you are today. They’ve been rejected and fired thousands of times.
The good news? Just because you experienced some failure or disappointment doesn’t mean that you should give up. You can wield failure like a learning tool and come out like a boss on the other end.
So welcome to Snapreads! Today, we’re going to provide you with some tips on turning failure into an advantage on your path to success.
Don’t Be Ashamed of Failure
The thing about failure is that it’s part of life, and it’s without a doubt a part of any business. But it’s not often acknowledged despite it being a fundamental element of success.
People have an instinct to be ashamed of failure. A suspected reason for this may be that they don’t like how failure feels or don’t like the feeling that they have done something wrong.
But you can’t think of failure as something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about. It’s valuable. What if we got all wrong? What if, instead, you have to fail in order to learn how to succeed truly?
The sooner you stop shaming your failures, the sooner it will be to turn them to your advantage.
Mindset
by Carol Dweck
⏱ 12 minutes reading time
🎧 Audio version available
Fear of Failure is the Enemy of Success
On your path to success, you’re inevitably going to run into some enemies, and failure is just one of them. But it’s not failure itself that’s so dangerous to your path. It’s the fear of failure that’s keeping you from accomplishing something or taking a risk.
And like all fears, fear of failure is something you conquer by facing it head-on. Become more afraid of doing nothing because that’s more tragic than doing something wrong. Once we get to that point, we will start to have the right mindset.
Let Yourself Fall
Did you know that Michael Jordan was rejected from his high school basketball team because the coach thought he was too short? Instead, they found someone who was taller.
And do you know what Michael Jordan did for the following year? You can probably guess that he didn’t wallow up in misery. Michael trained the hardest he’s ever trained to try out the next year. And he made it.
True strength doesn’t come from just what you can do, but it comes from your reaction to failing and from mastering all the things you were once afraid that you couldn’t do. Michael Jordan could have given up on basketball and went to seek another career. But instead, he’s arguably the best basketball player in NBA history.
Let yourself fall, but get up again and move forward.
Fail Forward
Everything so far in life has been pushing you to achieve that success. Every transition you make, every person you meet, and every bit of information that comes your way. And failure is just one stepping stone.
Turning failure into an advantage can be achieved by “failing forward.” Failing forward means that you learn from your mistakes and setbacks to make the necessary adjustments until you succeed.
Failure in life is uncontrollable, and we can’t stop obstacles from happening, but what we control is how we choose to handle them. Failure temporarily blocks out the vision, but they later shine the light on the opportunities waiting for us on the other side.
Once you get efficient with failing forward, then that’s when you can persevere even in the most trying of situations.
Accept that It’s Part of the Process
Accepting failure as part of the process is one of the most important things you can do. Acceptance doesn’t mean that you’re actively trying to fail, but it means that when faced with a setback, you understand that it’s not your final destination, that it’s just an extra step in your journey that’s getting you to where you need to be.
After experiencing a failure and when things feel particularly tough, one of the most irritating things you can hear is to “stay positive.” And here, staying positive doesn’t mean being happy with whatever happens to you or just keep smiling.
Positive thinking, or the concept of it, is misconstrued. Anyone who says that is lying. Positive thinking is when you accept failure as a hiccup in the process and understanding that you can learn, grow, and evolve from what you experience in life.
Be Honest With Yourself
The next step into turning your perspective about failure around is to be brutally honest with yourself. The majority of people don’t do this, and it’s taking a few minutes of reflection to think about what happened and then being honest with themselves on why it happened.
It’s easy to find some form of distraction to sweep your failure under the rug. But avoiding confrontations with yourself about the mistake you made will probably result in you doing it again and becoming a repeat offender.
Remember that Albert Einstein’s famous saying? “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
When you’re not honest with yourself, you’re not learning, and you’re doomed to repeat those mistakes whether you realize them or not.
Learn From Others
When we’re young, we’re taught that making mistakes is wrong, and that led to some unsavory memories of the past that now serve to trigger negative emotions like anxiety and fear, which are trying to stop us from making those same mistakes today.
This also makes it hard to validate the errors we make today and the problems that we experience. We end up second-guessing ourselves and questioning our capabilities.
All the while, no one told you that adversity is a must to succeed.
We look at these successful people and celebrities and their companies and brands and while we admire their success, understand that you only learn about them once they have struggled for years to make it big.
But we’re not privy to their failures, so we only compare our failures to their achievements and become discouraged when the two aren’t equal.
In the words of award-winning author J.K. Rowling, who’s the queen of picking herself off, she spoke about failure, saying that “It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all–in which case, you fail by default.”
Don’t Avoid It
One way to avoid failing is to never push yourself beyond your boundaries and comfort. It’s also another way to miss out on the chance to learn something new and accomplish something significant in your life. If we want to master something new, we just have to accept the risk of looking like an idiot.
If we don’t, we’re just repeating the same cycle of doing things that we already knew how to do and not accomplish any actual progress.
When you’re failing, you’re outside your comfort zone, and you’re one step closer to eventual success.
Watch How You Talk to Yourself
When it comes to success, your worst enemy may not be a failure but yourself.
After experiencing a setback, it’s crucial to be mindful of how you talk to yourself. Putting yourself down can be dramatically damaging. So let the aftermath of a failure sting for a minute.
And once you have taken some time to clear your head, you can start accepting what happened. And that emotional rush that you got will fade away, and you go back to focusing on the issue.
It’s Better to do Something Imperfectly Than to Do Nothing Perfectly
And here, we come back to what fear of failure is holding you back in life. It’s always, always better to do something imperfectly than to do anything correctly.
When you do nothing, that means you’re stagnant, not moving anywhere, and that means you’re going to stay in failure instead of trying to succeed.
Stop Shifting the Blame
There is a danger in thinking that failure is just circumstance, so you mark it off as bad luck, unrelated to your skill, talent, and abilities. Stop shifting the blame.
Most likely, there is always going to be something you can learn from the experience. And you can do that only when you take credit for it. As long you’re doing something, then the possibilities of success and improvement are already in your favor.
Adopt the mindset of “I can survive failure.”
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