Failing Forward: Turning Obstacles into Opportunities
Dr Gemma Leigh Roberts
Chartered Psychologist (Wellbeing, Resilience, Mindset) // Podcast Host: Psychology in the Wild // 6M Learners Worldwide (@LinkedIn Learning)
Navigating failure can be one of the biggest barriers to psychological wellbeing. How we think about and interpret failure significantly influences our mental health. Often, the stigma associated with failure evokes emotions like shame, embarrassment, and guilt, leading to an avoidance of new challenges and risks. This avoidance can severely impact our personal and professional growth.
However, it's crucial to understand that avoiding the feelings associated with failure denies us the opportunity to process uncomfortable emotions and learn from our experiences. So, how can we shift our mindset to use failure as a tool for growth rather than a roadblock?
How to turn failure into an opportunity for growth
As I share in my latest Thriving Weekly coaching video, here are five psychology-led strategies to turn mistakes and failures into valuable learning experiences:
→ Examine your mistakes
Don’t shy away from understanding what went wrong. Analysing your failures can provide critical insights into areas of improvement. This reflective approach not only helps you learn but also builds resilience by demystifying the fear of failure.
→ Use failure as a learning experience
Every experience, especially failures, offers an opportunity to learn and develop. Psychological studies show that experiencing failure is one of the richest forms of development. Embrace these moments as they can significantly contribute to your growth.
→ Look for opportunities
Shift your focus from what went wrong to what can be gained. Ask yourself what opportunities you can find to learn, grow, develop, or change. Remember, the only true failure is failing to use the experience positively.
→ Change the ‘win-lose’ language
We often see life events in binary terms – we either win or lose. But life isn’t always so clear-cut. For instance, you might win a project but lose a relationship in the process. Instead of seeing successes and failures as opposite ends of a spectrum, view them as integral parts of the development process.
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→ Take action
Use the lessons learned from failure to make positive changes in your life. Taking proactive steps based on past experiences can lead to substantial personal and professional growth.
Redefining failure as progress
Remember: Most success stories are built on a foundation of numerous failures. Each failure you encounter today could be a crucial piece of the puzzle needed to build your future success. Embrace these setbacks as stepping stones rather than stumbling blocks.
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Personal Lines Services Team leader at Old Mutual Insure. RE5. IISA General member.
2 个月Insightful!
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2 个月Turning obstacles into opportunity.
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2 个月unsources no matters no before noafter no just on illahinshallah . ya allah unshare unaware erasing vanishing removing again and again continue on.
Great strategy Dr Gemma Leigh Roberts. And making this a strategy within a team/organisation would be the next step. Very powerful.
System Director - Pathology Services
3 个月This reminds me of the Monday film sessions after our football games. We’d review the film with our coaches play by play and look at what went right as well as our mistakes. Sometimes a play where a mistake was made was repeated multiple times, not to belittle anyone but to learn what we did wrong to get better. The point was for us to improve as a team by learning from our individual mistakes. I’ve tried to take that mindset into all my endeavors to look at failures as opportunities to improve.