How to make success of failure

Did you know that JK Rowling’s manuscript for ‘Harry Potter’ was only accepted after 12 failed attempts? She said: “Some failure in life is inevitable. 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.”

Do you associate the word ‘failure’ mainly with positives or negatives? The answer may tell you a lot about your current mindset, plus also the way you’ve been conditioned to respond to the word and how you deal with failure. Often we associate the word with disappointment, defeat and not reaching a goal. The truth is that our reaction to failure is subjective. According to this Forbes article, “perspective is the most important factor in handling failure”. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/04/12/8-ways-smart-people-use-failure-to-their-advantage/?sh=646e7ff84489). The great news is that each of us is in control of how we deal with any results that didn’t bear the success we had originally hoped for. A sense of perspective.

How can you deal with failure in a positive way?

- Be kind to yourself but don’t ignore what has happened. Failure allows you the opportunity to look back, acknowledge and take responsibility for what went wrong. Treat yourself gently by processing any anger or disappointment, but then extract some helpful lessons from what took place, handle this with optimism and you could see some positive change on the next occasion.

- Be organised and set specific goals. The ‘What, Where and When’. Try to plan ahead by anticipating any distractions or obstacles to your next goal and you’ll be more likely to be successful.

- Don’t chastise yourself on what went wrong. Regroup and focus on mini successes along the way to your next goal, to fuel your motivation and help that goal become closer. Remember that failing itself can make you stronger and more resilient if you choose to flex your ‘mental muscle’ and remind yourself that you can recover well.

- Handle the disappointment with optimism. The same Forbes article mentioned above talks about the inherent optimism of entrepreneurs: “One British study of 576 serial entrepreneurs found that they were much more likely to expect success than entrepreneurs who gave up after their first failure.” If you approach each failure as a step on the path to success, it will boost your motivation and persistence.

- Focus on what is within your control. A failure isn’t always just down to you. A candidate with more relevant experience might be the reason you didn’t get that job. Use your self-awareness and emotional intelligence to concentrate on what you can influence.

- Say to yourself, “This failure is proof that I am pushing my boundaries and challenging what’s possible.” Yes, it is important to know your limits, but if we simply live within our comfort zones, how are we going to know what we’re capable of, or achieve new and exciting outcomes? Experiencing failure can also help you to trust yourself and your ability to make future decisions, whilst having confidence that you can recover from anything that happens.

- Share your failures to help others. This Harvard Business Review article ‘The Power of Positive Failure’ (https://hbr.org/2010/07/the-power-of-positive-failure ) by David Simms illustrates the benefits of appropriately discussing your failures with colleagues: "When we avoid discussing failures, we deprive both ourselves and our colleagues of the lessons we’ve learned from them.”

It is inevitable that each of us will experience failure to some degree in our lives. Remember it is a verb and not a noun, so does not define you. People who experience failure often gain humility, a fearless mindset and self-evaluation. If we learn from a failure and use it to reflect on the process, then modify our actions to aim for a different outcome, we are benefitting from that failure and can turn it into a success.