BLOOM BY FAILURE

So, how are your New Year’s resolutions going? By mid-January, you’re likely either sticking resolutely to your goals or watching them slip through your fingers. And that’s alright—New Year’s resolutions are your personal improvement plan. They’re yours to adjust, pause, or restart without explanation. But mid-January often finds us grappling with self-doubt, whether it’s berating ourselves for veering off track, falling short of a goal, or making a mistake. Professionally, the expectation for perfection can amplify this. However, during my academic and professional development, I came across a journal article that offered a refreshing perspective to: “See failure for what it is—a resilient growth process instead of a single final event.” The article also highlighted society’s aversion to the word ‘failure’ and suggested reframing it with synonyms that evoke learning and progress. This resonated deeply as I reflected on a significant professional mishap of my own.

Let me share the story of my most memorable professional ‘not to plan’ incident to date (I say ‘to date’ because, let’s be honest, working life is continually full of ‘surprises’). It was the early 2000s, and I was managing a nationwide recruitment campaign for a first-of-its-kind programme to develop fitness professionals in the third sector. The budget was tight, but we invested heavily in a recruitment drive using?The Scotsman?and?Scotland on Sunday?newspapers. I poured weeks into the creative, aiming for something bold yet aligned with the organisation’s ethos. By Thursday evening, the advert was signed off and, with the publisher, set to launch the next morning while my boss and I were off. Confident, I handed over to the HR team to manage the enquiries I was sure would come flooding in.

That Friday morning, my sister-in-law called me. She had been dialling the number on the advert all morning to request a recruitment pack—but the number was ringing out, no one was answering! My stomach dropped – that didn’t sound right as the HR team were on hand to take the calls. I called the team (knowing the number by heart (the irony) and they confirmed the flip side of my sister’s experience – no one had called to request a recruitment pack. I quickly opened my edition of the newspaper, turning the pages to the recruitment section to check everything was as it should be, and that was then I realised: I hadn’t double-checked the phone number on the advert. A single misplaced digit meant all the calls were going somewhere other than to our HR team. Panic set in.

After a few deep breaths, I jumped into problem-solving mode. I drove to our head office in Hawick, taking the time during the 25-minute journey to consider my options. ?By the time I arrived at the outskirts of the town, I had an idea.

Once there, I bought a telephone answering machine from a national retailer and a bouquet of flowers from a local florist. With these items in hand, I managed to track down the owner of the misprinted phone number as she strolled down Hawick High Street on her weekly shopping trip (a feat made possible thanks to a colleague’s invaluable local knowledge, which proved instrumental in identifying the homeowner). I explained the situation, apologised profusely, and offered to install the telephone answering machine on their line for the weekend to field what I was sure would-be hundreds of calls.

The homeowner—bless her heart—saw the funny side and agreed, provided she could pre-warn her family about the random recruitment hotline message they would hear if they called her over the weekend. By midday, the answering machine was installed with a recorded message: “Thank you for your interest in our programme. Please leave your name and email address, and we’ll send you a recruitment pack, blah, blah, blah”. Over the weekend, the machine collected hundreds of messages. In fact, the resulting database of potential candidates was larger than what we’d have managed had our HR team been fielding calls!

On Monday morning, I retrieved the machine, thanked the homeowner again, and got to work processing the messages. What began as a disaster (I’m all about the drama) ended with an outcome better than we could have planned. It was a hard-earned lesson in resilience, creativity, and quick thinking.

Mistakes are inevitable. In marketing—and life—things won’t always go to plan. What sets you apart is how you respond. This experience taught me the value of owning up, acting swiftly, and finding solutions that not only rectify but also sometimes exceed expectations. And while I’d love to say I’m now flawless at proofreading, the truth is, being human means errors still creep in. What matters is the confidence that I can handle whatever comes next.

So, here’s to embracing the resolutions that aren’t quite going to plan. It’s a great opportunity for you to think of alternative ways you can achieve your goal, or maybe even exceed it.