Embracing Failure: How to Overcome Setbacks and Create Opportunities.
Imagine All of the Jump Shots Michael Jordan Missed....
Because being wrong or failing is so personal, and because it is so inevitable, how you handle it goes a long way towards finding, choosing and/or creating your best self and your best reality. When you recognize that sometimes you might be wrong, you can be more accepting of this and work on necessary alterations.
We all make mistakes.
Congratulations - welcome to the human condition.
Rather than allow yourself to be angry or depressed or any other negative emotion when you find you are wrong about whatever it is you are wrong about — strive to learn from it.
Accept it.
Then let it go and move forward.
You are not alone when it comes to being wrong sometimes. Knowing this, you can always find support to help deal with the matter and then change it.
Adversity is part of life.
Why not work on the gift of welcoming adversity or not to fearing it, rather than being scared or stepping away from it. We complain about certain things because it excuses us from taking responsibility for our own thoughts and actions.
On turning adversity into advantage:
“On the occasion of every accident (event) that befalls you, remember to turn to yourself and inquire what power you have for turning it to use… If it be abusive words, you will find it to be patience. And if you have been thus formed to the (proper) habit, the appearances will not carry you along with them.” -?Epictetus,?Enchiridion
Failure can teach you lessons …
When you fail, it ultimately means something or somewhere is not good enough yet. When you can identify that gap and address it, you are one step closer to success.
Read that again …
“When you can identify that gap and address it, you are one step closer to success.”
Treat failure as lessons that guide you to where you want to be. Learn from your own failures or from the failures of others. Even though at times going through your own failures will leave a greater impact, but it can be unnecessary if you already know that’s the wrong move to do.
“A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.”?- Seneca,?Letters from a Stoic
Failure makes you stronger …
We put in hard work and effort every single day in hopes to achieve the outcome we will it to be. However, there will be times where things just do not go your way. So, from that point, what do you do?
Do you give up or pick yourself up?
Going through failures helps you to learn how to manage your emotions and realign your focus. Feeling disappointed is a given, but by having failures happen often, you will be less likely to dwell on failures but to pick up the lessons and move on better.
Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it — turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself — so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal. -?Marcus Aurelius,?Meditations
Other peoples’ failures provide a neglected source of managerial learning that is associated with enhanced learning transfer. Due to their negative valence, stories about other peoples’ failures as compared to stories about other peoples’ successes should elicit a more pronounced motivational response, such that people elaborate the content of failure stories more actively.
As a consequence, the knowledge gained from failure stories will more likely be applied on a transfer task. In essence a motivational response to failure stories and its benefits for learning is the most pronounced for people who view failures as valuable learning opportunities. In this experimental study, in which participants were exposed to a managerial training with stories about either managerial successes or managerial failures that delivered the same learning content.
Results showed that stories about managerial failures led to more elaboration and learning transfer, in particular for participants who see the learning potential of failures.?
“Others have been plundered, indiscriminately, set upon, betrayed, beaten up, attacked with poison or with calumny — mention anything you like, it has happened to plenty of people.”
- Seneca,?Letters from a Stoic
Failure Keeps You Grounded …
Imagine a life with no failures, the world we live in is so perfect that we might lose the drive to improve ourselves or seek knowledge. Negative things must happen to help us appreciate what is good.
No bad, no good ….
Failure is here to remind us that no one is perfect and there is so much to know in this world. Stay humble and hungry for improvements and commit yourself to lifelong learning. Learning does not have a finish line or end point, it is not a linear experience.
“I did not think this would happen’, and ‘Would you ever have believed that this would happen?’ ‘But why not?’ is my reply.”?- Seneca,?On the Tranquility of the Mind
Failure can be a useful way to shine a light to reveal what is?really?going on with your situation and what needs addressing.?Last year, I invested in a guesthouse & events centre, with a friend of my dad’s as a partner in the venture. This was the holiday makers dream for a one night get away, hot tub accommodation, a starlit blanket above their heads, bliss.
However, just 9 months down the line and we had lost our investment & sold our share. We cut our losses and got out. The dream, gone. This was a dream come true, so how did it go sour so quickly??
In hindsight, because we didn’t manage it as well as we could have from the very start – we hadn’t put the right systems in place, we hadn’t established ground rules and expectations with our partner, and problem after problem meant that our profit was being eaten into.
“The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out. There are brambles in the path? Then go around them. That’s all you need to know. Nothing more. Don’t demand to know “why such things exist.” Anyone who understands the world will laugh at you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.” -?Marcus Aurelius,?Meditations
After the initial hurt and anger, I came to realise that the lessons learned from this?“failure”?are priceless. If I could turn back time, would I do this all again?
Of course!
I learned more with the failure of the Guesthouse & Events Centre than I ever would from guru’s “how-to” business books.
“Remember: you shouldn’t be surprised that a fig tree produces figs, nor the world what it produces. A good doctor isn’t surprised when his patients have fevers, or a helmsman when the wind blows against him.” -?Marcus Aurelius,?Meditations
Failure gives you an opportunity to learn from your mistaken actions and do what’s right the next time around. Failure shows you have physically and mentally experienced a negative happening, setting you back and furthering your goals. This is an extremely powerful tool in terms of reflection and personal growth.
People only don’t make it because they quit. Perseverance far outweighs skill and prior knowledge.
Skills can be trained or taught, attitude and outlook are an entirely different beast!
“The foolishness of people who are surprised by anything that happens. Like travelers amazed at foreign customs.” -?Marcus Aurelius,?Meditations
It is said that before entering the sea,
a river trembles with fear.
She looks back at the path she has travelled,
from the peaks of the mountains,
the long winding road crossing forests and villages.
And in front of her,
she sees an ocean so vast,
that to enter seems nothing more than to disappear forever.
But there is no other way.
The river can not go back.
Nobody can go back.
To go back is impossible in existence.
The river needs to take the risk,
of entering the ocean,
because only then will fear disappear,
because that’s where the river will know
it’s not about disappearing into the ocean,
but of becoming the ocean.
-Khalil Gibran
Director & Consultant
2 年Good stuff mate. Nice read.
Organisational and Talent Development Manager
2 年Love this Tom. Great work ??