BOUNCE BACK AFTER FAILURE

It is impossible to go through life without ever experiencing a setback or failure. Failure come in all shapes and sizes from losing a basketball game, to losing someone close to us, to getting passed over for promotion. But no matter how big or small, reality is that our ability to get through the emotional storm isn’t easy for most of us.

Picking ourselves up again, dusting off the failure and starting all over again may be a real challenge for some because more often than not we think that recovering from failure is an inborn character trait. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. We can all learn how to recover after failure but simply sitting around moaning about what went wrong and not doing anything about it won’t help us to bounce back.

Failure is inevitable and inescapable, there is no denying it and the sting of a letdown, the pain of a defeat or the agony of a disappointment is hard to endure. Failure sucks, it hurts deeply and our ego gets bruised. But failure doesn’t have to demoralize us and it most certainly isn’t the end of our journey to success. It just means that we didn’t succeed this time and it is a natural part of the success process.

Here are our TOP 10 tips on how to bounce back after failure.

https://www.boldnaked.com/bold-naked-bounce-back-after-failure.mp3

#1 Be Honest with Yourself

In order to be able to bounce back after failure you have to be honest with yourself. Don’t try to sugarcoat the fact that you actually have failed, don’t lessen the impact. Instead, be completely honest and 100% straightforward about your failure and how bad it was. Because if we lie to ourselves about the failure we are only doing ourselves a disservice. There is no point in hiding the fact that we failed or pretend we didn’t want to reach this particular goal in the first place. The only way we will be able to bounce back is to be upright and forthright with ourselves. Remember, it’s ok to fail. Failures are some of the greatest opportunities and biggest lessons that allow us to become a better person and learn, grow and improve ourselves.

#2 Don’t Beat Yourself Up

Of course, be upset and feel the hurt, it is only natural to be in a state of defeatism for a while, but it is important to not stay in that state for too long and not beat yourself up over it. In order to bounce back and move on it is essential to not let that pain of failure last forever. Remember Thomas Edison? When he attempted to innovate the electric light bulb, he famously failed over 10,000 times, but didn’t allow himself to live in a state of failure forever. He had the power to not beat himself up over the failure and instead stated that he never failed, he just found 10,000 ways that wouldn’t work and with that gave himself the opportunity to move on and try again.

#3 Forgive Yourself

Another essential part of bouncing back from failure is to be able to forgive yourself for past mistakes. Mistakes and failure are part of life, but as long as we can learn from them and forgive ourselves for those mistakes and failures, we will be able to move on. Because if we don’t forgive ourselves, we replay the failure over and over in our mind and won’t ever be able to move past the situation. Nobody is perfect, we make mistakes and we fail. Forgive yourself. You don’t necessarily have to forget it, but you need to forgive.

#4 Find the Lesson

We fail so we can learn something. If we would never fail, we would never learn, which leads to a boring, mediocre life. If you fail at something, find the lesson and ask yourself what you can learn from the failure, how can it help you to succeed in the future and what you need to do differently next time. When we find and understand the lessons of failure, we will realize that our time and effort wasn’t wasted, it just made us smarter and wiser than before.

#5 Re-Evaluate Your Plan

If you are trying to achieve something over and over again and it isn’t working, take another look at your plan. Ask yourself if there is a better way to go about it, figure out if your expectations are unrealistic and look for people who can help you. Remember, Einstein famously said that the definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome. Re-evaluate your plan and decide which direction is the right one to reach success.

#6 Be Grateful for What You Have

Gratitude is one of the most important aspects in life and if we can be grateful for what we have even in the most difficult situation, we have the power to turn things around and keep going. Even if you fail, it isn’t all bad and sometimes we need a little reminder. Make a list of all the things and people you are grateful for and whenever you face a mistake or failure, quickly go look at your list to prove to yourself that there are still plenty of things that are going right in your life. Even science is on board and has found that counting your blessings has a direct link to feeling good. 

#7 Find What Makes You Happy

Whenever you find yourself in a downward spiral of negative emotions, feelings and thoughts after a failure embrace the hobby you love, the places that bring you joy, the people you care about. Nothing can ward off a negative tailspin as positive experiences and thoughts can. Negative emotions can hijack our ability to bounce back after failure. However, positive emotions can expand our horizon and allow us to think creatively to find a solution. So whenever you have to deal with failure, do what makes you happy and self-generate positive emotions and a positive perspective that enables you to bounce back.

#8 Help Someone

If you find yourself in the wake of failure, look for ways you can help someone else. When you help someone else, you shift your focus towards the positive and allow yourself the possibility to bounce back a lot quicker. Shifting your focus from wallowing in your own failure to helping someone, contributing something to their success is a great way to recover. You forget about your own personal problems, at least temporarily and you can distract yourself from your problems while at the same time doing something constructive for someone else. 

#9 Don’t Isolate Yourself

Some of us may feel like going into isolation after failure, but it’s important to remember that being alone with your negative thoughts won’t help you to bounce back and recover. Start small and spend some time with family and friend and talk it out with them. Once you start feeling like yourself again, go out into the world, attend conferences and networking events and connect with likeminded people. Remember you failure isn’t the first, there will be others who had to deal with their own setbacks and failures and if you connect with others it will be much easier to come up with a solution and move on.

#10 Don’t Be Afraid to Try Again

Never be afraid to dream big and try again. The most successful people achieved their success only after monumental and massive failures and most of them didn’t just fail once. Dream big and hold your dream so vividly in your mind that the failure doesn’t have the power to diminish your spirit. You can achieve anything if your mind can conceive it. Don’t be afraid to try again and conceive the inconceivable. It may not happen right away, but it will happen, so don’t be afraid to dream big, believe in yourself and try again.

Failure can work for us big time, if we look at it the right way. By itself, failure isn’t detrimental, but the paralyzing effect it can have on us if we let it, is what’s damaging. When failure happens we have two choices. We can either give up or get up and fight again. The right choice will help you to get back up on your feet and start all over again to steer yourself in the direction of success.

LET FAILURE MAKE YOU TOUGHER, STRONGER AND MORE RESILIENT

Joschi & Monika

#BoldNaked