How to fail better
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it's the courage to continue that counts - Winston Churchill (who, incidentally, failed the sixth grade).
Failure is hard to define because it’s such a subjective notion; total failure for one person may simply be considered a small setback to others. But the fundamental problem with failure is that most of us tend to attribute it to permanent – rather than general – causes.
The problem when we observe our failings this way is that it allows the failure to inform our internal narrative. Research from sport suggests that athletes who overgeneralise instead of being specific about their losses can lead them to feel less confident, more anxious and then go on to affect future performance. They have entered a self-critical mindset and have now developed a kind of performance anxiety – as many of us do in the workplace.
Take this situation for example: If we do not succeed at a new role, attributing the failure to permanent causes would lead us to tell ourselves, “I failed because I’m no good at this career, and I should give up.” However, a more level, objective look at the situation would reframe things and take account of the bigger picture at play. Now we can tell ourselves, “I didn’t succeed this time because I didn’t have the support” or “I wasn’t able to use my strengths here, but I will in a future role.”
We all have the power to not only change what we see as a failure, but also how use it to learn and improve in the future. Here are some ways we can learn to fail better.
Confront your belief system
Pay attention to the way you retell your failure – which beliefs do you hold about yourself at this moment? Consider this situation as an example. You get to the final round of interviews for a job and are told that they chose another candidate over you. Conclusions such as “I will never get a new job because everyone else is better than me” or, “I’m just going to stop applying for roles because if I don’t apply, I can’t get rejected,” will give this failure the power to define your narrative, and thus your view of yourself. A failure might be part of your story, but it does not have to become your identity.
Foster a growth mindset
Focus not on proving but improving yourself. Use failures as opportunities to learn, reflect and refine your efforts. Ask for feedback, don’t be overly defensive when it comes, and then put it into action next time. Each time you try but don’t succeed, glean as much information as you can from the situation. Knowledge is power.
Give yourself time to reflect
Give yourself permission to take some time out and allow some introspection. Harvard Business School researched the role of reflection in the workplace and found it to be greatly indicative of people’s performance. One study found that during a 16-day training course, those who spent the final part of each day either writing down or sharing their reflections on what the day had taught them performed significantly better than those in the control group – who had just kept working solidly. Sometimes we want to plough on, burying our head in the sand, but it does us all good to allocate time to reflect on why we are doing what we’re doing.
Crucially, to fail better, we need to accept failure as a part of life and learn to get along with it. There’s a trend in Silicon Valley right now about failing as much as possible – the more times we fail, the more work we must be putting in to reach that goal in the first place. This piece on aiming for 100 rejections a year puts a fresh spin on what failure really means.
Always remember: better to fail than not try at all – rejection is proof we are trying to move forwards, rather than being paralysed by a fear of failure. You can’t reach your goals by standing still.