Learning From Failure

Failure is the first step towards success. Yes, really! It is often used as a very negative word, when we talk about very black and white situations like passing or failing an exam. It’s not such a cut and dry situation though. Failure can be a learning curve in its own right and does not always represent a lack of effort or a careless attitude and changing our negative perceptions around it can be the first step towards really learning from any failed situation.

So, what can it teach us?

Perseverance

Failure can teach us how to persevere. When there’s something we’re passionate about or a goal we firmly believe in, a setback won’t stop us from moving forward. If our current circumstances fail to live up to our expectations, then perseverance is a key lesson to draw upon. Best-selling author J.K Rowling was rejected by many publishers, consistently over several years. It would be so easy to think that in the face of such constant ‘failure’ giving up would be the only option available. It was self-belief and resilience which motivated her to keep trying and turned her into a global success story.

Resilience and Strength of Character

Failure can catch us by surprise. After all, if we anticipate or expect a problem, we can plan for it or take measures to avoid it entirely. Failing at something can, on occasion, be because of a planning oversight, but more often than not it’s due to circumstances beyond our control. This can be deeply frustrating, it’s human nature to want to find a reason or a cause behind something. Learning to navigate through life’s challenges, no matter how frustrating takes personal strength and experiencing setbacks can teach us how to confront that head-on.

Without failure and the ability to learn from it, we’d keep making the same mistakes. Without the ability to learn from our mistakes we’d be stuck living in caves with square wheels. Or even worse have the same dodgy haircuts from our younger years. Throughout our lives we learn how to innovate, how to develop our thought processes, our problem solving, and our resilience based on the lessons from all the “failures” we’ve previously dealt with.

Whether or not we truly ‘fail’ depends on if we fail to learn from the situation.

At Fresh Perspective we are constantly learning from our mistakes and then times when we don’t get it exactly right. We are always working on our feedback to ensure that our services and business is providing the correct solutions to our customers and potential clients.

We would love to know how you learn from your mistakes, and how you ensure that you can review and move forward from them! So, please connect with us and share with us your case studies and ideas.

Have a great week!

The Fresh Perspective Team x