It
is unlikely you have reached mid-life without someone, somewhere along the line
telling you that that there is no such thing as failure, even Oprah Winfrey has
said those words*. Usually there is something added to it. There is no such
thing as failure only learning opportunities or, only feedback or, only results
etc.
It
may be a little controversial but I will say failure is thing.
Life
is not perfect, people are not perfect so things can and do go wrong in life.
Then when we experience those things we also have an emotional response to that
failure. It can range from mild disappointment to depression, it can include
frustration, anger or resignation. Failure can sap your motivation, damage your
self-belief and leave you feeling useless.
The
level of that emotional response is often dictated by the level of personal
investment we have in something. The more we put our effort and time into
something that means a lot to us then, if things go wrong, the greater our emotional
response will be.
If
you conform to the idea that there is no such thing as failure then you are
setting yourself up for a double whammy. When something, inevitably, doesn’t go
to plan not only do you get the emotional response from that failure, you also
have the response to the fact you have failed in your belief that there is no
such thing as failure! Causing the emotional equivalent of an aftershock
following the initial earthquake.
However
if we accept the fact that we will have failures in our lives and that we will
have some form of emotion attached to that we can develop some resilience and
bounce back much quicker.
The
first thing to remember is just because you have had a failure it does not make
you a failure. Some people will define who they are by the things that go wrong
in their lives, ignoring any positives that come along and actively looking for
those failures to justify the way they think. But if we know that any failures
we have are just a blip on our way to achievement then we are putting things in
a proper perspective.
Secondly,
work out what went wrong. Be honest with yourself though, it is very easy to
blame others or external causes and while these things certainly happen ask
yourself if there is anything you could have done to have avoided the impact of
the external influences.
It
may be that you can’t for the life of you figure out what went wrong. It which
case just go ahead and do things again, just make a slight alteration to
something in the process and see if that brings about a positive result.
Those
little phrases added to “there is no such thing as failure” are actually right,
failure gives us learning experiences, results and feedback. We need to use
those intelligently and constructively in order to correct any errors in our
thinking, planning and execution of our goals. Sometimes learning what doesn’t
work can make life much easier for us in the future as we know what pitfalls to
avoid.
However,
as you reflect on what you could have done to avoid failure also remember to
reflect on those wins you had before things went wrong.
We
often see top athletes bought to tears when they fail to win. It sometimes
seems strange to us because they have achieved so much and coming second is
still an excellent result but because they put so much personal investment into
winning, that immediate emotional response is to their failure to win. Top
athletes have the advantage of coaches and sports psychologists who will help
them realise that they have made those huge achievements before meeting someone
who was better on the day.
However
us lesser mortals don’t have the luxury of such support. Therefore we need to
be able to it ourselves. You may be lucky and have someone close to you who can
provide constructive support but many don’t have so we need to become our own
coach and point out all the successes we have had so far, how far we have come
and how we can keep going onwards.
The
important thing is, don’t stop, never give up.
Failure
is a thing, but if we can accept it will happen and embrace the lessons it
teaches then we can move forward on to success.
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