How to Use Setbacks as Fuel for Future Success

I am convinced that I would not be where I am today without failure. But not every failure ends so well. Sometimes, people suffer a setback and never recover. But, eventually, we have to acknowledge that we could not move on until we accept the failure and learned from the experience. It is all in how we process it. If we are going to succeed, we must learn to deal powerfully with failure.

There are at least Five components to turning failure to your advantage:

1. Acknowledge the failure.

Failure is natural if you are striving to deliver big results. The problem comes when you fail and then refuse to acknowledge it. Once you acknowledge failure, you take away its power. You can then begin to turn it into something positive.

2. Take full responsibility.

You won’t get anywhere as long as you blame others for your failure. As long as the responsibility is external—outside of you—you are a victim. Why? Because you can’t control others. But when you take responsibility for the failure and become fully accountable for it, you take back control. You open the door to possibility—and to creating a different outcome in the future you must acknowledge the failure and own it.

3. Learn from the experience.

Even failure can be redemptive if you learn something from it. Honestly, there are just some things you can’t learn—or won’t learn—without failing. It only makes us stronger if we thoroughly process the experience and ask, “What was missing?” rather than “What went wrong?” The latter shuts down possibility and often results in blaming. The former opens up possibility?and results in learning.

4. Change your behavior.nbsp;

“Those who cannot learn from history are destined to repeat it.” and we have to be willing to change our behavior. If we keep doing the same things that led to the failure, we are destined to get more failure.

5. Enter whole-heartedly into the next project.

You can’t allow failure to hold you back from the next venture. If you fall off the horse, you have to get back on—immediately. If you don’t do this, the failure magnifies in your mind. Wait long enough, and you might never get on at all! Instead, you must put the past behind you and move forward.

Failure is inevitable if you are going to tackle significant goals. When you fail, that’s a good sign—you’re taking action and trying to achieve big things. But you have to learn to make these failures work for you. In doing so, you are planting the seeds for your eventual success.