#38 of the 101 Ways to Love Your Job

Dealing with Failure

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ~George Bernard Shaw

There are few of us out there that are at peace when faced with a failure. Failure is scary, embarrassing, sometimes expensive, and can make "getting back up" more difficult with each additional failed attempt. Hey! Feeling motivated and downright perky?? Well, let's see if I can turn this segment around a little and put a different spin on failure.

You have probably seen statements on failure that sound something like this:

~You never make the shots you don't take.
~Thomas Edison created 99 different versions of the light bulb before he made one that worked.
~The Chinese character for "failure" also means "opportunity."

But his knowledge all sounds a little "pie in the sky" when you are the one who has failed. Before I offer some constructive tools for dealing with failure, I'd like to emphasize that "failure" is self-defined. What may appear to be a failure to everyone you know* may only mean to you that you need to refine the process, practice more, learn from your mistakes, etc. Conversely, what may seem like no big deal to others may seem devastating to you. Regardless, if you identify a failure on your part, there are few things you can do, except "try, try again," as they say. But how do you get the energy or the nerve to try again?

*(I submitted some version of this book to publishers six time over a 7-year span and was rejected--or failed--each time. Failure is only final if you stop trying).

Mourn the Failure.

It's rarely effective to try to fool yourself that you didn't goof. When we deny a problem, it comes to life; when we acknowledge it, it dies. By admitting you made a mistake, screwed up, fell on your face, that it's not someone else's fault, ONLY THEN can the process of getting over it begin.

Anger, crying, self-flagellation, brooding...whatever your version of processing a negative emotion, will allow you to mourn your disappointment in yourself. Note: if you process negative emotion by eating for comfort, drinking, or taking it out on others...that's not processing emotion, but transferring it/avoiding it. Do the work! Remember this famous saying, "The only way out is through."

Then what?

Dissect the cause.

Now that you have mentally and emotionally processed the pain of failing, look at what the cause of the failure may have been and how to avoid it in the future. After all, learning from your mistake is just about the only silver lining.

More on dealing with failure in the next post!

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