How To Embrace Failure and Bounce Back Strong
The greatest stories of all time didn’t start and end with ‘and they lived happily ever after’. It’s true for us too. Our life’s story is made great by how we managed to pull ourselves up after experiencing failure.
Talking about failures is not easy especially if it’s personal. It’s harder to talk about if you’ve not managed to rise above it. This is a topic that hits very close to home because I’ve had my share of failures to fill out an entire sheet of paper. Perhaps even more.
Whatever type of failure you go through, one thing is for certain; your initial feeling is that of helplessness. There might have been times when you ended up just lying on your bed and just staring into open space and not being productive at all. I get it. I’ve been there more than once. You don’t feel like doing anything. It’s normal. Give yourself that time. But do not dwell on that feeling for too long. You need to get yourself out of that rut and be better than yesterday.
Here are 3 simple strategies on how you can bounce back from failure
1. Do not let your failure define who you are
Simply put, you are not your failure. Do not dwell or beat yourself up when you fail. It happens even to the best of us. Instead of telling yourself “If only I did this”, tell yourself “Next time, here’s what I’m going to do.” The difference between the two phrases is worlds apart. One focuses on the failure while the other focuses on opportunities for growth.
When you let your failure get the best of you, this is when you feel pathetic that you are not capable of succeeding. It paralyzes you into doing nothing. So you lost a promotion to someone else. Does that mean that you shouldn’t aim for that next promotion? Of course not. It should mean that there are some things that you still need to work on or areas for improvement. You weren’t able to sign on a client? Ok. Work on the next one and see what you can improve on.
Just because you failed once doesn’t mean that you will fail the next time. Failure teaches us that there is a way for us to improve.
2. Make changes to your environment
When you make changes to your environment, the people you hang out with, the places you go, the music you listen to, helps rewire your brain. It can help you see things in a different light.
Take time to work outside your usual working environment. Talk to people who might have experienced the same failure as you. Ask them how they managed to turn things around and if they are not there yet, figure it out together.
3. Strive to be happy
Happy people are productive people. This is arguably one of Thanh’s favourite phrases because it’s true. The happier you are the more productive you’ll be.
You might think that it’s impossible to be happy after failing at something. It is impossible if you manage to forget the things that make you happy.
Let’s start with this question: what makes you happy?
Whatever those are will be one of the reasons why you will bounce back from failure.
Things happen for a reason. That reason is growth. Each failure is a chance for growth. Embrace it and bounce back.
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Culled from: Asianefficiency