John C. Maxwell wrote, “Successful people approach losing differently. They don’t try to brush failure under the rug. They understand that life’s greatest lessons are gained from our losses.” Everyone encounters failure and loss in our lives. How we react to those losses determine how well we succeed.
There are three common stumbling blocks that keep us from learning from our failures. Any one of these can keep us stuck for an extended period of time.
1. We let failure become an emotional roadblock. We become so attached to the failure that we don’t process the lessons we could learn. We are so devastated emotionally, that we don’t have the energy to move past the failure. It becomes the excuse for us not to take any further action.
2. We become mentally defeated. We cannot let the failure become overwhelming. Finding hope in all situations will lead to new solutions. Mentally we need to keep failure from being the end of our journey. It was Albert Einstein that said, “You never fail until you stop trying.”
3. We become bogged down in regret. When we encounter failure, it is natural to begin blaming ourselves for not taking different actions. We must learn to forgive ourselves and not get stuck on regret. It is important to evaluate results, and determine different actions that would have been more effective. However, once that is complete, we need to focus on tomorrow and not yesterday.
How do you process failure? The key word is process. Success and failure are both processes. They are not events. If you want to learn more, I am beginning a new mastermind group that will discuss and develop strategies to build success upon failure. Send me a message at mark@marksbrown.com if you would like more information about participating.