We all know what failure feels like. Everyone has been there at one point or another. Maybe it was a teeny tiny mishap or maybe it was something super important and it just didn’t end up how you wanted it to. Whatever the “failure” may be, there is always a chance of learning and growing from it.
After all, how will you know what success feels like if you’ve never failed?
We won’t sugarcoat it, failing isn’t fun, but it presents us with an opportunity. Failure helps us to grow, change, and evolve into the best versions of ourselves. The question is: What do you do when you fail and how do you learn from it? Let’s break it down into 5 simple steps to turn a failure into a learning opportunity.
5 Tips on Learning from Failure
1. Trial and Error = Growth
When we fail, we find out that something went wrong or didn’t work the way we wanted it to. If something goes wrong, it tells us we need to make a change for the future. This is an opportunity to improve. Sometimes, when a failure happens, it doesn’t mean we aren’t good at something. Rather, we may need to try something slightly different or seek a new approach.
For example, if you don’t make a basket the first time you shoot a basketball, do you put the ball away and just walk back inside? No. You try again. You know what you need to adjust to successfully make a basket. You try to shoot higher, more to the left or right, or get closer to the net until you can work your way back.
As easy as it might feel to stop trying after a failure, it is important to keep going. Try slightly different approaches, try entirely new things, and ask for an outside opinion. Maybe you can’t tell right away what went wrong, so enlist an outsider’s perspective. Ask a friend, family member, or mentor to help you evaluate the error and figure out what you should do to try again. Every failure is an opportunity to grow.
2. Think Outside the Box
Failure forces you to be innovative and creative. Take a deep breath and then review what you did on the first try and how it can be done differently. Is there something that can be changed? Is there something you can make better? If the answer to either of those is “yes,” that’s great! It means you already have ideas and thoughts about what to do next.
If the answer was “no” or “I don’t know,” use this as an opportunity to get super creative. Think outside the box. Maybe it’s time to come up with completely new ideas. Thinking outside the box doesn’t always come naturally. Sometimes it takes some time and tricks to get into a new mindset. Try pretending you are someone else with a completely different personality and then try to solve the problem. Step into someone else’s shoes. Learning to think outside the box is a great skill, and failure is the perfect opportunity to sharpen that skill.
3. Get Uncomfortable
Failing is uncomfortable; nobody likes to do it. It’s not enjoyable and can leave a pit in your stomach. The hardest things in life are never comfortable. However, the hardest things are also the most rewarding. If you can outlast the uncomfortable feeling, you might just experience something great in return. Step outside of your comfort zone.
So you failed, it happened, it probably sucked, but you tried it. Outside of your comfort zone is where you learn the most. It’s where you try new things. And once you’ve tried those new things, then you get to continue to grow and get better at them.
For example, say you are struggling to find a job. You keep applying for applications online, but you aren’t getting any responses. Maybe it’s time to do something a little uncomfortable like sending emails directly to where you want to work or walking into the building and asking in person about job opportunities. Sure, it would be more comfortable to send in the applications from the comfort of your own home, but writing emails and speaking in person will give you more practice, and you’ll get better and better at it.
4. Find Success in Failure
Recognize that there was also success within the failure. If you place last at a debate team meet, didn’t you still stand up in front of a crowd and speak? That sounds like a success to us.
It may not be easy to do when you feel down about a failure, but we encourage you to always find the positive. Look for all the great things that you got to experience and do because of the failure. Keeping a positive attitude when a failure occurs is crucial to getting back on your feet and trying again. It’ll help you find motivation and persistence to succeed.
5. Don’t Give Up
Failure doesn’t define you and it isn’t a direct reflection of who you are and what you can achieve. Instead, think of failure as a stepping stone to your final destination… success. Even when you find success, there still can be more failures after that. It’s important to be confident in yourself and know that failure is only another opportunity to learn.
Failure gives you the chance to grow and be stronger, faster, smarter, and better than you were before. If we only experience success, everything would be easy, and we would become sluggish and mundane. There would be no reason to try because we would know the outcome. Success is a gamble, and if you’re willing to play, there are bound to be failures too.
At the end of the day, everyone fails. What sets successful people apart is that they are willing to learn from failure and turn it into something greater. Learning from failure is not easy to do, and there will be a lot of emotions that try to discourage you from trying again. Recognize those emotions, but also recognize you can be stronger than those emotions and achieve great things. Next time a failure happens, think of all the ways you can learn from it.
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