You must stop protecting yourself from professional failure
Failure can deliver significant advantages-and contrary to common belief, you may reach your goals (or resolutions for the new year) more effectively when you find ways to embrace failure. And there are some specific ways you can lean into an experience-ways to practice failure in order to achieve success.
Failure is integral to success
Failure is part of success; and if you never fail, you are likely not trying hard enough or you may be deceiving yourself
- To fail means you have reached for a new goal, you’ve had the opportunity to learn about the skills or capabilities you need to develop, and you have demonstrated commitment to something that matters to you
- There is an optimal failure rate: if you fail 15% of the time, you will enhance learning, keep trying, and stay motivated
Begin with clear goals
The goal should still be to succeed
- Set a goal to win, not to “not lose”
- Embrace failure and move past it
- Strive to win the promotion, not just to avoid being bested by a colleague
How to Embrace Failure
Let go of a sense of fear
- Focus on learning
- Feel the pain
- Reflect on how it feels and how you can learn and improve for the next time
- Be positive
- Use failure to advantage by managing your own thought processes
- Embrace failure