Have you ever worked hard on something only to fail and have to start over? Sometimes failing is awful. But what if failing is a gift? With the right perspective, failing gives us a hidden advantage we can’t find anywhere else?
Last weekend, I paid someone to help me build a huge trampoline for my kids. We took everything out of the box, read the instructions (okay I skimmed them) and then started working.
Three hours later, as I was attaching the safety net which is the final piece, it didn’t align properly. I realized the foundation was installed incorrectly which affected the final pieces. This meant I’d have to disassemble the entire thing and start all over. And the guy I paid to help me had to go.
So, I took it apart, skimmed the instructions again and went back to work. This time I felt confident since I knew the problem areas. But just as I was gaining momentum and was almost finished, I messed up somewhere along the way. This time, I had to go back several steps, but not to the beginning.
Third time is a charm, right?
Then, by my third attempt, I was moving so fast you’d think I was a pro at building trampolines. I was filled with confidence and was determined to build this contraption even if it meant staying up all night!
Fortunately, I finished it on my 3rd attempt.
Failure can happen at any time and no one likes it. However, if we spend a little time reflecting our failures there are so many nuggets we can take from those experiences.
Some failures can turn into gifts if we look at them from a different perspective. Our reaction to failure is based on our perspective and not necessarily on what happened. As leaders, it’s critical that we develop that bounce-back-ability so we can get up quickly, shake it off, and keep moving forward.
Winston Churchill was spot on when he said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
My experience with the trampoline helped me to see three gifts from failing.
Failure can give us more clarity
It’s impossible to be successful without tasting failure. In fact, failure is a stepping stone that brings us closer to success because it gives us an opportunity to learn what doesn’t work. Speaking on failing, Michael Jordan said,
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
Failure is really an opportunity to see if your plan can work. Sometimes the only way to confirm if something works is to act on it. Ever heard of “Analysis paralysis”?
The financial guru Dave Ramsey loves to say “Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn.” We can treat failing as final and fatal or as a win-win. It’s a choice.
But sometimes we are so scared of failing we don’t take any action. That’s why John F. Kennedy said, “There’s nothing to fear but fear itself.” What we really fear is the embarrassment we’ll feel when others see us fail and not the failure itself.
Does the risk of embarrassment outweigh the risk of not having clarity or even worse- doing nothing?
Failure can give us more confidence
Confidence comes from action. Confidence comes from knowing you’ve struggled or failed, but you’re still undeterred.
Our culture does everything possible to avoid failure, but that’s where a major part of our learning comes from. That’s how we all learned how to walk. In fact, the act of walking is a controlled fall.
We put so much emphasis on succeeding at all things and all the time but that’s not realistic. In some cultures, people who fail are shamed to the point where they feel suicide is the best option.
This reminds me of Zig Ziglar’s quote, “Failure is an event and not a person.“ We all need that reminder from time to time, don’t we?
One of Elon Musk’s first companies failed. But his clients kept asking about a piece of software he created to collect payments. That thing eventually turned into his next company. If Musk had succeeded we might not have heard of Paypal.
Paypal was the nugget among the debris of failure.
In Silicon Valley, Musk’s experience with failure and then finding something us along the way happens so often they call it making a pivot. Our experiences become pure failures when don’t learn from them or use them for something better.
Maybe instead of saying we failed, we should tell ourselves we’re just “making a pivot” to something better.
Failure can build resilience.
In the process of writing my first book Leader by Choice, I made so many mistakes. Sometimes I wanted to smash my laptop on the floor, set it on fire, and jump on it like a trampoline. However, each time I decided to keep going I was actually building my resilience muscle.
You can’t build resilience from your wins. Most of our biggest lessons in life come from the valleys and not the peaks. Personal development guru Jim Rohn said, “Most people change because of two things: Inspiration or desperation.” The desperation that comes from failure can be that final push we need to change.
So, what’s your reaction when you fail?