Get ready to fail – and learn

For many, failure is something we think negatively about and avoid at all costs. I am not suggesting we should seek or invite failure but accept that failure is an inevitable part of life. None of us succeed without having experienced “failures”. Our opportunity is to be open to what we can learn from failing. Failure is our best teacher. In a recent HBR article Scott Edinger shares 5 ideas on how to successfully learn from one’s mistakes:  

1. Acknowledge the failure and put it in perspective. You can’t begin to bounce back from a mistake if you don’t admit you’ve made it. As obvious as it sounds, it’s clearly not always easy to do. Research shows that owning up to their mistakes is the key factor separating those who handle failure well from those who don’t. Those who were derailed perseverated and didn’t talk to others about it. They made little attempt to rectify the consequences. Those who weren’t derailed did the opposite: They admitted their mistakes, accepted responsibility, and then took steps to fix the problem. And afterwards, they proceeded to forget about it and move on.
2. Look for causes, not blame. If you’ve caused a problem, the good news is that you have control over that cause. By focusing on finding the cause(s), rather than assigning blame (with all the value judgments that go with that), you take control and move to prevent similar failures from happening again. Thinking in terms of causes rather than blame is similar to adopting what Carol Dweck describes as a “growth-oriented” rather than a “fixed” mind-set. A fixed mind-set tends to leave us helpless and ready to wilt in the face of a challenge. A growth mind-set puts us in a position to press on toward success.
3. Before you wrack your brain to think up an appropriate response, take a break. Get away from the task at hand for a while and let your brain refocus. None of us is designed to work 24/7, but in the wake of failure, it’s often hard to stop thinking about what’s happened. As counter-intuitive as it sounds, this is probably the last thing you should do. Engage in other pursuits. Spend time doing something different, read, or simply get some rest. Physical activity is a plus (we’re all familiar with the effects of endorphins on brain activity). It doesn’t matter how long of a break you take: five minutes, five hours, five days. The point is to let your mind wander. You’ll be amazed at what you come up with.
4. Get some help. Feeling down is normal. Prolonged periods of despair are not. If you find you can’t get into that growth-oriented mind-set no matter how much of a break you take, find some way to express your feelings in the company of someone you trust. That could be a friend, a colleague, a mentor, or a therapist. There’s no shame in seeking help when you’ve suffered a setback. And therapy no longer carries the stigma of being damaged that it used to. To prove that, I’ll admit here that I’ve gone to therapy at times in my life when I’ve felt particularly down, and it has helped immensely. See, no stigma.
5. Refocus your efforts and take action. Nothing will make you feel quite as good as taking action and finding even a modicum of success in that action. It may take some time to reach that success, but you certainly won’t have any until you start trying. One of the ways we feel better is to exert influence and control over a situation, and creating a plan of the actions we intend to take is a sure-fire way to start feeling that control. Create your plan and get specific about what you’ll do to reach your new goals. While you can’t change what’s happened, you have options for the future, and as you refocus your efforts, think about what would be best from this point forward.

The next time you fail think about these 5 points and recognise the opportunity to learn and bounce back, wiser, more confident and more determined.