It took Thomas Edison more than a thousand tries to get the light bulb right. Yet how many of us give up if we don’t nail something perfectly the first time out? The best baseball hitters in the game fail two out of three times at the plate. Still, how many of us won’t step up and try something new unless we can be assured of success first?
The problem is how we think about ourselves in relation to failure and its consequences. We must change the way we think about failure, and in the process, change the way we think about ourselves.
Failure can be the fast track to success if you recognize and use it the right way. It’s all in how you choose to size it up. Following are five ways to handle the disappointment of failure and use the experiences to your advantage, both in business and in life:
Define failure as learning
When toddlers fall down, do we say, “Man, they really messed up!” or “Wonderful, they’re learning to walk!” Yet when we fall down at work, we often say, “I failed.” Worse yet, we may define ourselves as failures. Better to view failure as a temporary and necessary step on the way to where you want to be.
Just like falling down is a predictable and inevitable process for the toddler learning to walk, so too are occasional failures along the way to success in whatever you attempt. In fact, it’s hard to improve if you don’t fail, because failure delineates clearly where the opportunities for improvement lie.
When you do fall down, don’t label yourself a failure. Instead, recover quickly from the temporary disappointment by asking, “What can I learn from this? What worked and what didn’t? How can I do it better next time?” Then, follow the toddler’s example: get up with a smile on your face and try again, knowing you are better for the experience.
Manage expectations: Yours and theirs
Sometimes the problem with failure lies in unrealistic expectations when trying something new. We expect everyone to embrace the new strategy after a single meeting. We expect the new model-year car to perform as well as the old one. We assume customers will flock to our latest and greatest product immediately.
Rarely, however, are such scenarios the case. Newly revised product lines often have bugs, and wary customers often have to be convinced over time that what we offer meets their needs and interests.
Perception about failure on the back end can be reduced or eliminated by managing expectations on the front end. Begin new ventures with optimism tempered by realism, and help your colleagues and customer do the same. Anticipate there will be problems, and let everyone know you will be ready to solve them. That way, when problems do arise, they will help reinforce your credibility versus damage it. And, problems won’t lead you and others to assume you’ve failed. Rather, problems will be viewed for what they are — road signs pointing the way to progress.
Stop trying to be perfect
Trying to be perfect can keep you from trying new and untested methods for reaching your goals. The valuable experiments that ultimately lead to success will never happen if you are afraid to attempt them in the first place. In a vain attempt at perfection, we might freeze up and keep whatever natural talent we have from taking over.
Rather than strive for perfection, strive for action; bold, resolute action in the direction of your goals. You can make midcourse corrections as you go, but you’ll never have the chance if you never get started. Aiming for perfection is fine; expecting it, however, is unrealistic.
Manage fear before it manages you
Perhaps nothing holds us back as much as fear. Fear is our natural protection against threats to our physical survival. Too often, however, fear gets triggered when physical survival is not an issue.
Physical harm won’t follow if your idea gets shot down at a meeting. You won’t lose an appendage if you return from your sales call empty-handed. Just because fear often gets triggered in these situations doesn’t mean you have to succumb to it.
Gather yourself, take a deep breath, tell yourself you’re OK, and go about taking your next step forward. Learn to control your fear or it will end up controlling you.
Stay in the moment
“What if?’’ can be a very useful question for anticipating scenarios and stirring creativity. “What if we doubled market share next quarter? What if we could take the best aspects of our competitor’s products and roll them into ours? What if we could use our expertise to aid the less fortunate in our community?” Good questions all.
Unfortunately, too often our internal dialogue goes more like this: “What if I say something dumb at the meeting and everyone laughs and decides I’m stupid? What if the economy takes a turn for the worse? What if we get bought out and I lose my job?” We begin to imagine negative “what if” scenarios and put so much mental energy into them that we have little left over for more positive endeavors, and failures mount.
To counter this trend, notice when you are becoming anxious. Then, notice your thoughts. Likely, you have mentally raced ahead to some scary place that doesn’t exist. Bring yourself back to the here and now. Ask yourself, “What’s going on right here, right now?” It’s likely not nearly as bad as what you were imagining. Dealing with the realities of the moment will help you avoid creating unnecessary failures in the future.
A FINAL WORD
If fear of failure is holding you back from pursuing dreams or accomplishing goals, challenge yourself to think again. Reconsider how you think about failure. Often, failure is the first and necessary step toward discovering our fortune; it points the way to success. Perhaps Henry Ford put it best: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
