Have you failed at something? Maybe your belly still churns when you think about an error you made or something you could have handled better. Maybe your error had embarrassing corporate exposure, or you did something you don’t feel great about with a friend, partner, or family member.
I coach a lot of executives, and one thing I have learned is this:
You can’t get to the top of your career or have huge success without failing. A LOT. You have to make mistakes to learn.
Successful people don’t avoid failure. They turn their failure into gold.
Here are some quick tips I have found helpful for myself as I learned to develop my muscle of transforming a perceived failure.
#1 Retrain your shame.
Are you embarrassed by your error? You might still feel the upset in your body today, even if the error happened years ago. Whether your body experiences shame, embarrassment, or something else, you can teach your body to respond differently. You are not likely to completely stop the emerging feeling, but you can retrain it.
When you notice the feeling in your body, respond directly and immediately. Find a phrase that works for you to talk to yourself and/or your body directly.. This talking to yourself may feel trite or cheesy, but it really works. You might say, “I know I’m feeling shame or embarrassment, but if I didn’t make this mistake, I couldn’t be successful.” You might even add, “I’m glad my body reminds me of my successful fail so that I can get better and better at this over time.”
#2: Dig for gold.
A failure only counts if you bury it deep beneath the surface and try to forget about it. But if you dig it out, you’ll find gold and treasure. The treasure lies in what you learned for yourself that helps you move forward. I coach many executives, and my best perspectives typically come from errors I’ve made and learned to do better over time.
So ask yourself, “What did I learn?” Did you get into a crappy relationship? Cool! What kinds of things did you learn to do so that it doesn’t happen again? Did you ignore early warning signs? Did you keep telling yourself you could change the other person? Or maybe you made your error at work or on the job. Terrific! If you didn’t die from the error, at least learned you learned that you wouldn’t die from an error at work. Did you find a skill you need to develop? Did you learn about someone else and how they treat people? Again, the failure or mistake would love to share its gold, but you must dig first.
#3: Tell your story.
I do a lot of public speaking and have learned to use my embarrassing moments and failures as teaching points in my talks. But you can simply share it with a friend or colleague. Sharing my errors has created greater closeness, whether I am sharing it in a talk or with a friend at coffee. People tend to lean in closer when I am vulnerable and share where I wasn’t perfect.
People are more likely to trust you when you tell your story about the error rather than trying to cover it up. And if you made an error with a client, you have even more reason to own up to it. Clients tend to trust vendors who acknowledge their errors and go about addressing them even more than they do vendors who appear to make no errors.
Your inclination when you make a mistake or embarrass yourself may be to avoid and hide the error, but that is like someone telling you that they buried a treasure chest filled with valuables in the sand. They tell you that you can completely have it if you want, but digging it out might be a little uncomfortable. Are you going to walk away, or will you get more comfortable being uncomfortable to enjoy the treasure?
What has worked for you in overcoming failure? Share in the comments!
