If you want to be a success, you have to get comfortable with failure.
You have to try things… and some of them won’t work.
You have to reach out to prospects… and most of them will say no, if they say anything at all.
Sometimes the approach you take to a project won’t work… sometimes a client will pivot and not need you anymore… or sometimes you’ll drop the ball, because life gets in the way and you’re just not at your best.
Learning how to handle setbacks and failures in a productive way is one of the most important things for your future success.
“The secret to winning is learning how to lose. That is, learning to bounce back from failure and disappointment — undeterred — and continuing to steadily march toward your potential. Your response to failure determines your capacity for success.” – James Clear
Failure Isn’t Fun
The first step to developing a productive approach to failure is to accept that failure is unpleasant.
When you want things to go one way and they fall short, that’s disappointing.
When you take a risk and you genuinely lose something as a result — time, money, or confidence — that’s outright painful.
If you don’t accept that it’s okay for failure to feel bad — and recognize that the bad feelings are temporary — then you’re likely to work hard to avoid future failures.
And that means taking fewer risks…
Trying fewer things…
Avoiding rejection…
Staying quiet, small, and safe.
That kind of avoidance will keep you from growing into the success you can be.
You don’t want that.
So, step one in learning how to handle failure is to remind yourself that, even though it isn’t fun, you’re okay. You’ll recover. Even more than recover, you can come out of a failure better off…
To do that, you need to take stock of what happened.
Failure Invites Introspection
Whenever things don’t go as planned, take the opportunity to explore what’s happened and why.
Ask yourself:
What did you set out to do and why?
Sometimes just reminding yourself that you had a worthy goal and a decent plan for achieving it is enough to take the sting out of a setback. Recognizing your reasons for trying to bring about change can remind you of the value of what you’re trying to achieve… and often you’ll find that value is worth the discomfort.
What worked and what didn’t?
Maybe your plan of action had some holes in it. By reviewing what you did that worked and what didn’t work or what could be improved, you shift your failure into a learning opportunity. Now, instead of experiencing a setback, you’re experiencing growth. It’s still uncomfortable, but it’s positive.
What was in your control and what wasn’t?
Not everything that contributed to a failure may have been in your control. Sometimes world events happen that derail your best-laid plans… sometimes family events happen that demand your attention and pull you off track from your business goals. Be frank with yourself about what was in your control that you could have done better. But be equally honest with yourself about what was out of your control. Taking stock in this way can help you be kinder to yourself… and that makes it easier to get out there and try again.
What did you really lose? And what did you gain?
Often, the biggest loss within a failure is simply a bruise to your pride. Sometimes you’ll have lost some time. You may have spent some money that ended up being an expense rather than an investment. And then ask yourself what you gained. The experience, skill, and wisdom usually outweigh the loss… especially in the long term.
When you take the time to accept and feel the negative emotions associated with your setback, and then progress into learning from it, you’ll get better and better at navigating the risk-taking necessary for success.
When you do have another setback, it won’t hurt so much.
When you set out to try something new, you won’t feel as nervous. And you’ll go into new experiences knowing you’ll learn something … which is part of growing toward success.
Failure Is Fuel
Taken in the proper context and treated with the respect it deserves, every failure you experience turns into a steppingstone toward what you want to achieve.
Every failure helps you grow and become better.
When you look at it this way, failures stop being failures at all… instead they’re the practice that goes into getting you where you want to be. And when you get good at trying things without tying your worth to the outcome, the process of experimenting becomes exciting… even fun.
It also helps you build momentum… and that’s powerful.
Now, let’s look at an example of how you can turn failure into fuel.
Example: You Realize You’ve
Been Building the Wrong Audience
Let’s imagine for a moment you’ve been working on building an audience for your digital-copywriting business. Your focus has been on growing your LinkedIn following along with your email list.
After six months of posting to LinkedIn every day and using various strategies to bring people onto your email list, you pause and take stock. You realize most of the people who are following you and who subscribe to your list are content developers from very small or start-up businesses.
And that’s a bummer, because you want to work with mid-sized companies in the transportation and logistics department.
You’ve been doing the work to build an audience, but you haven’t been attracting the right people… a definite setback.
Take a beat to feel disappointed and frustrated. It’s okay to have those emotions… they’re part of the learning process.
And then, when you’re ready, move into introspection.
What did you set out to do and why? You wanted to build an audience of marketing managers and directors at companies that provide transportation and logistics services, because you have some background in that area and you enjoy doing the type of writing this industry needs. (Just noting that can begin to restore your momentum — what you want to do hasn’t changed. You still want to do it, and as long as that’s still true, you’ll eventually want to try again.)
What worked and what didn’t? Publishing on LinkedIn and using a mix of strategies to grow your email list worked to attract followers and subscribers. That’s good news! It’s proof of concept. But you didn’t attract the people you wanted to… which means you probably need to adjust the type of content you’re using for both strategies. (Now you know what you need to adjust to get a better result on your next attempt.)
What was in your control and what wasn’t? What you published and how often was completely in your control. Who the LinkedIn algorithm put your content in front of was not. Instead of beating yourself up about that, you can make a few adjustments that could put the algorithm in your favor — you could decide to follow more people who are part of your target audience and study what posts they react to and comment on. That will give you a better idea of what you need to create to attract that audience. (That’s a huge insight to help you get a better result next time! And chances are, at this point in reviewing what happened, you’re starting to get genuinely excited about the idea of trying again.)
What did you really lose? And what did you gain? Through the most pessimistic lens, you lost six months of time and effort posting on LinkedIn and building an audience that’s off the mark for your services. But, what you gained is far greater. You built a daily publishing habit on LinkedIn — and you know how to figure out the shifts you need to make in your content strategy. You learned a mix of methods for growing an email list — methods you can adjust to be a better fit for your audience and that you can use to help your clients in the future. You created six months’ worth of content you can tweak and repurpose to better support your goal. You proved that what you want to do can be done and that you can do it.
In short, you’ve gained a ton of experience and good habits that put you in a strong position, as you make your second attempt to attract the audience you want to work with.
Reframe Your Relationship With “Failure”
When you accept that setbacks and failures are part of the process of growing a business… when you recognize those setbacks will naturally come with some discomfort… when you make it a point to reflect on your failures and learn from them… a powerful shift will happen…
You won’t be so worried about things not going to plan. Instead, you’ll be ready to try things, learn from them, and then do better on the next attempt… and that’s a mindset that can make you unstoppable.
