Michael Lyons: Deal with failure and use it to succeed

-How to Handle Failure and Successfully Use it-

As an engineering student I have the unique opportunity to view many extremely intelligent people repeat something extremely terrible on a regular basis.

FAILURE

That's correct, I watch my fellow engineering students work to achieve goals and then fail to meet those goals.  As a matter of fact, I can say that I see at least one failure each day.  Why does this happen?


1.  Insufficient Preparation:  One knows the required preparation material, goal, or tasks, they understand the requirements and then do not work properly to ensure their success.


2.  The Curve Ball.  Sometimes life just throws a curve ball i.e. what was expected and prepared for was completely different than what was found at the challenge.


3.   ___________.  This is the catch-all reason, the car broke down, kids fell ill, etc.


The point of all this?
Everyone, not just engineering students, will fail in some way, shape, or form.  Today is about recovering from that failure.


Failure is not entirely negative, it may be very beneficial if treated properly.  
To overcome a failure, it is extremely important that you analyze your mistakes and/or deficiencies in the failure area, and find a way to overcome them in the future.  


How to Overcome failure and Learn from it
Start a successes and failures journal. Make it a point to reflect on difficult situations, in professional, academic or social settings.


Ask yourself these questions:
1.  What did I do right on fill in the blank?
Please STOP and re-read point 1. Repeat.
This is extremely difficult for many people, they fail something and then reflect by saying:


-"I tried my best"
-"I'll do better next time"
-"Maybe no one else did well on it"


These are not the types of reflections you want to foster.  
Focus first and foremost on what you did well on fill in the blank, and it will be much easier to continue the reflection process.  

Focus on the positives first!

2. What should I have done that I did not do?


3. How do remedy this (the answer to question #2) in the future?


4. How will I hold myself accountable, and how will I track my progress?


Holding yourself accountable and tracking your progress is vital for improvement.  If you do not track your progress, it is not possible to determine how much you have improved.  Without any sense of forward progress, you will become discouraged and fail to significantly improve.




Bad Day Syndrome
Upon failing something, most people have a tendency to really beat themselves up for hours afterwards thereby ruining their day.  Please, realize that mentally flogging yourself for failing at -Insert Issue Here- is waste of your extremely valuable time!  


Odds are that    –Insert Issue Here- is something that you will soon forget about in light of something more important and that issue is not worth ruining your entire day.  If you doubt this, try the following exercise:

1. Write down the worst possible implications of your failure e.g. you lose your job and are unable to pay your bills.  Be extremely detailed.

2.  Find ways to overcome your problems.  If you feel there is a problem that is insurmountable talk with people around you for help.  Where there's a will there's a way.

To recap:

• Analyze your failures and learn from them
• Focus on the positives first
• Track your progress and hold yourself accountable

Now there's only one thing left to do:

Succeed.

Suggested Reading: Stoicism 101: A practical guide for entrepreneurs