The first thing to say is that, failure happens. It’s unavoidable. The best people and businesses in the World fail, and that’s why they become great at what they do. If we succeeded at everything, all of the time, we really wouldn’t learn anything and without learning we would never progress forward.
I know what it’s like starting up and being so cautious about avoiding failure, well the sooner you accept that thing’s will go wrong, the better. It’s human nature that we worry ourselves with all of the scenarios that “might” happen but you should focus your mind and your business to deal with what “will” happen and that is failure. Failing is the first step to succeeding because without failure we will never progress, learn and develop our skills.
Here is how I deal with failure –
– Relax : It’s not the end of the World. Sometimes we get so caught up in the situation at the time that we make rash decisions, even more mistakes and that’s because we are focusing so much on righting the immediate wrong that we don’t take time to digest it and think about it properly. Every time that I fail at something I run a nice hot bath, have a beer and totally switch off from everything and everyone for a full hour. This hour allows my brain time to digest the situation, switch off from it and completely relax to a point of calm. After this hour, my mind feels refreshed and looks at the situation in a new light.
– Write it down : I have a physical list that each time I fail at something, I write it on the list. The list must easily have over 100 entries on there but I scan through it once per week and it ensures that I don’t make the same mistakes twice.
– Know that everybody fails : Some people don’t like to admit it, but we have all failed at something. I remember when I starting failing at things, I started to doubt my ability, to doubt my surroundings and it had an effect on my confidence but when I realized that we all fail at something, it made me feel a lot better. There is nothing that you can fail at that somebody hasn’t failed at before and it’s a comforting feeling knowing that it has happened to somebody else and the World isn’t against it, it’s life.
So, those are the 3 ways in which I deal with failure. I fail on a regular basis but that’s why I also succeed. I appreciate and take value from each and every failure because I look for the lesson in each of them, as oppose to seeing them as a negative process.