Failure is part of everyday life. But, the more often you can re-frame your ‘failed’ experiences, the better you’ll become. You’ll still fail….. everyone fails! Just remember to see it as a learning experience, then try again.
To improve at anything, you need to learn more about the subject. Learning what doesn’t work, is just as important as learning what does. Eventually you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.
By redefining every failure in your mind as a learning experience, it’ll lessen the negative emotional impact and the fear.
FAILURE = FEEDBACK
By seeing it as simply feedback and by listening to the advice that it gives you, you will improve. And, by accepting it’s the process that’s at fault, not you personally, your level of confidence won’t take a drastic hit every time you fail, or fear failing.
How you view failure controls how difficult it is for you to pick yourself up after that failure.
Most of us are ‘taught’ from an early age, that failure is a hurtful and demeaning feeling, to be avoided at all costs.
What’s surprising, is that the most successful people, are usually the ones who’ve failed more times than anyone else. This is because they have a different response to failure than the more common one.
They see a failure as an opportunity to learn what went wrong. Then they use that important learning experience to improve. Whereas most people see failure as the final nail in the coffin of that experience, and then give up.
This abundance-mentality isn’t only restricted to the professional world though. In relationships for example, they realize that not every person is going to be right for them and sometimes they’re going to be rejected.
But, again they see it not as a failure in themselves, but as another step up the relationship ladder. Another learning experience.
How to Re-frame Failure:
A good way to change your perspective on these ‘failures’ is to ask yourself some questions…..
- What’s good about this?
- What can I learn from this?
- What about this situation, can I improve on next time?
- Will this ‘failure’ really matter next year?
Now, I’m not saying that it will be easy. In the beginning it will be difficult to remember to ask these questions. You’ll have work on your skills to sharpen them. But, like everything, the more you practice, the better you’ll get at it.
Decide today that failing, or rejection isn’t something entirely negative that you can’t possibly come back from. And DON’T see yourself as a failure.
A failure of any type, is when something you tried didn’t work out the way you expected. Always remember that it was the ACT that failed, because it needed to be refined. You, as a person didn’t fail, only your expectation failed.
What Next?:
Practice asking yourself these questions when you feel like something failed. Remember that by failing, you’re giving yourself a chance to try again with better information. And if you need build some self-belief generally, check out my previous post to get some ideas.
