How You Can Overcome Failure.
You. Will. Fail.
That’s a message nobody wants to hear, yet it’s a reality everyone has to face.
And when I say everyone, it includes you and I. Failure is life’s not-so-little secret, yet it’s become the elephant in the room that nobody wants to discuss or acknowledge.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself engaged in conversations with people all over the country who either have experienced, or are experiencing, some sort of recent failure.
Some were men, some were women. Some experienced failure in the past, others were in the midst of their failure. Some failures were smaller by comparison, while others would be considered “major” failures.
It didn’t matter who they were, what they did, or what they experienced, every person I spoke with about failure had one common denominator: they were human.
That’s the thing about failure: it doesn’t care about those things or respect who you are. Failure knows no bounds, and it is not partial. Everyone will experience failure at some point or another.
In my own life, I’ve been privy to a multitude of failures in different areas like work, school, finances, relationships, and even in my own character. Some failures have been minor and have had less significance in my overall life… like that time I got a 0 on a Greek test in college. (No joke — I scored 0/50!) While other failures, like the time I nearly destroyed my marriage, have been massive and life-altering.
Chances are you too have struggled your way through failures of varying degrees. Failure is not bound by, or limited to, our professional lives, or just to relationships, or only new endeavors; it permeates all areas of life, deteriorating our morale, hope, and spirits.
And because we all face failure, we all have to learn how to deal with them. Winston Churchill once famously said, “Success is moving from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.”
So then the question is not, Will you experience failure? But rather…
What will you do with failure?
As an “expert” in failure, here’s are four steps I’ve learned along the way to move past failure successfully.
4 Steps to Deal with Failure:
1. Grieve it.
Too often, too many people, try to hurry past failure or act like it never happened. While I understand the temptation to breeze past the pain, you short yourself the process of moving forward as a whole person if you do not allow yourself to grieve. We invest our time, energy, money, and relational collateral into failed endeavors ultimately resulting in emotional loss. And where there is the loss of emotion, there must be grieving.
2. Own It.
By “own it” I mean to recognize the failure itself and your contribution (if any) to it. Most people would rather deny failure and deflect blame onto someone or something else than deal with reality. You cannot move forward from something if you do not own the fact that it happened.
3. Develop It.
To develop failure means to examine what went wrong, identify areas for improvement, and maximize learning opportunities. You’ve already dealt with the emotional reality of failure (which is the hardest part), so why not make the most of the event? Develop it and allow it to become something that makes you stronger, better, and wiser!
4. Appreciate It.
Over and over, I’ve heard people say in regards to failure, “I would never choose to go through it again, but it’s made me the person I am and for that I’m thankful.” When you go through this process, you learn to appreciate failure because it’s helped make you who you are today. And who you are today is just a foreshadow of who you can become tomorrow.
Failure doesn’t define you as much as it refines you.
So whoever you are and however you’ve failed, you can work through it and come out successfully on the other side.
