How do you handle creative project failure?

I believe that when things go wrong, or we see an area where we could improve, we can take that with us into our next piece of work. Everything is a learning opportunity. If you believe the problem was your execution, you can always recycle an idea. It's a lot more common than you would think!

In my experience, when a project doesn’t turn out as I planned. My instinct tells me to pick fault in my contribution. Was I over ambitious, was the research or ideal not good enough. It’s only natural to want to evaluate and learn from mistakes. But it is equally important to recognise that something not working out is part of the process. It isn’t failure, what you learn from that situation is valuable insight into how to recognise sings something isn’t going as planned. Identifying an issue gives you the opportunity to react to the issue and either adapt your approach to it, or consider how best to get the most out of the resources you have.

In my experience, the answer is find the reason, move on, and learn from it. Writing what is going on in a project is a good way at the end of it you will find out what it went well and what went wrong. From there we know next step, we leave in a world that everything is a challenge and who love challenges will continue looking for better ideas and careful to not repeat the same issues on the first place. Proving yourself that the effort put in the project it was worthy.

I look at things not turning out the way you planned or expected as a life lesson. In life you learn from your mistakes. Reflect, move forward and make adjustments to that project or its components and apply moderations to improve in your future endeavors.

Using mind mapping methods such as logic trees can help you diagnose the root causes of your failure in a structured way. Once you identified the main reasons for failure, make sure to differentiate between the aspects you could control versus those you couldn’t, and of those you couldn’t control, if you could have predicted or not predicted them upfront. Focus on things you can control and avoiding things you can’t control but can anticipate next time, but be ready to face new unknown challenges. Accept that you will never 100% know the reasons for failure upfront and enjoy it as part of the innovation process.

Some of the ways I have started analyzing my opportunities have been to wake up an hour or two before I had to begin work and journal how I am feeling on a daily basis. To feel good about yourself, you must be satisfied with yourself. You may set your phone aside, meditate, go for a run, or do anything else that makes you feel content. The moment you realize this, everything will fall into place. Take steps to become a better version of yourself than you were yesterday.

Whilst it is important to notice when things go wrong, it is productive to consider what went well. Dwelling on the negatives impedes a growth mindset.

It is okay if you do not agree with every point in a piece of feedback. Everyone has different perspectives. However, if you do appear to be disagreeing with the majority, you should probably listen to their suggestions.

Fail fast to learn fast. Iteration is core to creativity. This is not a linear process. it's an exploration process. If you knew the path form the start it would not be a creative endeavor. Even if you reach the end of the road and do not achieve your objectives, many of the seeds you planted on the way will bear fruits in their own time.