I saw a post on from the fabulous Sarah Hathorn on Twitter a while back:
Leadership Tip: Effective leaders view their failures as just detours on the way to success! #leadership
I thought to myself. “Right. It’s feedback.” So I replied to her:
“Failure is feedback. It allows us to change our approach and improve the process. #leadership“
Stop and take an honest inventory of your view on failure. Do you view failure as an opportunity to improve, or do you view it as being “less than” or “not good enough” because Plan A didn’t work out? What drives those feelings? Where is your focus and mindset?
I was talking to a friend of mine about the idea to this post and he said “I fail every day.” I love that. He didn’t say “I quit every day.” He said he failed – this implies he’s trying daily. We don’t have all the answers. We are not always going to get it right, but we are 100% more successful when we try than when we are paralyzed by fear of failure.
Did you know that there are over 534,000 videos that talk about how many times some of the most successful people failed before they got it right? These are meant to be inspirational videos. If they can do it, I can do it. Right? Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs, J.K. Rowling, Henry Ford, all faced adversity and failure, but they stuck with it. They kept going.
Below is one of my favorite quotes by J.K. Rowling:
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” ― J.K. Rowling
In some cases these people faced monumental setbacks, but they didn’t let it define them. They continued to try. They rebounded until they succeeded, and then they continued to work hard and continue trying new things.
In order to dare to do great things, two important aspects must occur: you must put yourself out there to try AND you must engage with others who encourage continuous learning and continuous improvement. Far too often we engage in cultures where there is such a stigma around failure and so much effort is placed on perfection and the pursuit of it. Spoiler alert: no one and no organization is perfect. We could all save a lot of time and heartache striving to something unattainable.
We see it every day in the news – especially lately with the #MeToo movement: organizations learn somewhere along the way that a catastrophic lapse in judgment has occurred, and in many cases, lack the courage to admit it, learn from it, and make it right. We all make mistakes. We are all human. Why do we try so hard to convince those around us otherwise?
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