How To Fail and Win

Winston Churchill said that success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. To persist under the shadow of failure takes courage. You can find that courage by shifting your perspective and taking the time to reflect and learn from your failure.

Failure is awful. It may be humiliating and discouraging. It could seem like a cruel joke and cause you to second-guess your decisions. It may cause you to withdraw within yourself, vowing that things would never again get to this point.

However, it is also vital to experience failure. On the road to achievement, it is an important stepping stone. Nearly everyone you would consider successful has failed at something, and most have failed multiple times.

Failure is not the opposite of success. It is the prerequisite for it.

You must change your attitude to turn your setbacks into victories. Consider these as learning and growth opportunities rather than catastrophic occurrences.

Reflect and Learn

When reflecting on past failures, keeping a level mind is critical. To accomplish this, you might utilize a series of questions to take you through a failure scenario.

What was your measure for success?

Take a look at the following situation. A man goes for a run. He comes to a halt after 5 miles and takes an Uber back to his apartment. The man is on his way home when he comes across his neighbor, who has completed a 12-mile run of her own. The man immediately declares his endeavor a failure. Was it, however, the case? Is it possible to determine this based on the information provided?

Many people experience failure “after the fact” because they don’t define success. They have enormous dreams but don’t say how they’ll get there. Thus, setbacks can occur at any time; all it takes is a bad day, a moment of distraction, or the appearance of another person’s achievement.

How could you have failed if you did not have a measure of success?

What problems led to the failure?

Consider what occurred in the play-by-play. Create a list of the steps or events that transpired, either mentally or on paper. Record the person responsible for each step and the outcome of that step (i.e., whether the step was completed as expected).

Next, identify the steps that had an unexpected and negative outcome that contributed to the failure. How did each situation develop? What were the consequences of each situation? For example, the situation may be that your car broke down while driving on the freeway. The consequence was that you didn’t get to the airport in time and missed your flight.

Which problems could you control?

It’s important not to write yourself off as a powerless victim of fate while thinking about the issues that led to the failure. Also, not every problem is your fault. There is erroneous reasoning in both camps. The former causes one to absolve themselves of all blame. As a result, there will be no opportunities for growth through mistakes. The latter leads to unattainable goals since it is predicated on the flawed belief that we are ultimately in charge of everything that happens in our lives. Figure out which issues are within your sphere of influence. You should then concentrate on figuring out what is causing these issues.

Why did the problems occur?

Conduct an analysis to determine the source of the problems. If there are numerous concerns, arranging them in order of their impact on the failure could be useful. Following that, you can focus on the most impactful elements.

Discover the origins of each problem. A root-cause analysis, as explained in a recent blog entry, is one effective technique for this. The term “Five Whys” refers to a typical strategy employed in this context. This strategy aims to determinethe fundamental cause of a problem by asking “why” it happened.

Pay attention to the facts and evidence. Avoid negative, irrational thinking. Considerations such as “what should have happened” or “what is fair” produce little relevant knowledge. Consider the chance that you are wrong (and for others to be right). In the same spirit, remember that you are not a mind reader. Thus, attempting to infer other people’s motives when problem-solving is pointless.

Accept the Failure and Move Forward

After coming to terms with the defeat, it is time to go on to the next step. If the result you were hoping for is still important, then this indicates that you should give it another shot. If the result does not matter anymore, then it is time to let go of the past and go on with your life.

Rather than viewing failure as the outcome, you can consider it as a bump in the road along your journey:

• Walt Disney was fired from his first job for “lacking creativity and imagination.”
• It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts to develop the light bulb.
• Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, got rejected by Harvard ten times.

Ultimate success or failure depends on whether or not you keep at it. Or, as Winston Churchill said:

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm

In the end, failure is an essential learning experience that contributes to personal development. We gain a deeper understanding of who we are through experiencing failure. We develop greater strength and resilience. We improve our capabilities for achieving our objectives. Failure enables us to mature in ways that success cannot. It reveals to us what approaches are successful and which ones are not.

The first thing you should do is think about what went wrong without passing judgment on yourself. You can pinpoint the issues that contributed to the failure if you do so. You can determine the fundamental reasons behind those issues by introspection.

The next step, if the results you were aiming for are still important to you, is to get back on the horse and give it another shot.