Learning Not To Fail

Failing is easy.

Success is hard.

To fail, many times, is simply the result of not trying hard enough. Other times you can try hard and still fail. The key is honing your skill of learning not to fail.

Frequent failing can mean you’re just lazy and not committed to the effort required to guarantee success and you’re certainly not learning from each failure. Other indicators include a lack of clear, concise goals; a lack of general clarity; a habitual focus on blame and finger pointing and of course your mindset.

Mindset goes hand in hand with attitude. Attitude is the prime ingredient of all failure or success. I like to keep it simple. You either have a SURVIVAL mindset or a POSSIBILITY mindset. One will ensure failure, the other ensures success. The two are usually very easy to spot. The survival mindset can best be identified simply by asking someone as part of a greeting, “How are you doing today?” and the answer in return, “OK I guess, I’m just getting by.” In turn, the possibility thinker will answer the same question with a confident, “I’m doing great. Thanks for asking!”

If you go into a project with a survival mentality, then you’re beginning the project believing you could fail. I would lay odds that you would fail, and that I would likely hear you say, when you did fail, “Oh well, I knew that would happen.” The possibility thinker always has the expectation of winning. They have a true burning desire and a very real fear of losing. They simply expect success.

So, here is the secret sauce. Maybe it’s not such a secret but it seems to be, based on the small percentage of people who actual seem to practice it. I believe that you can learn how not to fail. The only real failure is one where you didn’t learn something from the challenge. If you fail at any level, top business people and entrepreneurs the world over know to follow certain protocol. Rather than complain, make excuses and look for blame, possibility thinkers will always: STOP; Analyze exactly WHAT happened; Analyze exactly WHY it happened; Analyze exactly HOW it will never happen again; Make appropriate corrections then move on, never to repeat the failure again. This is the process of learning not to fail.

The reality is that we are all going to fail at some time. How we react to these failures is the key between future success and a future of continued failure. Frankly, I’ve learned that life is fragile and in the overall scheme of things, very short. So, why would you take the time to repeatedly make mistakes? Drop the ego. There’s no shame in admitting failure, and failure is not defeat. If you fail at a project or task, learn why it happened and how to prevent similar issues in the future, then move on down the road. I guarantee that you’ll get to the end goal faster than most everyone around you. And, that feels very good!