We read lot of books narrating successes where authors narrate their success stories but rarely we read of stories of failure.
Failures can teach us more than successes. It is not only businesses that can fail, even individuals can fail at different points in their professional and personal life. A failure to score high marks in exams, to get a dream job, to study in a dream institute, marriage divorce, to name a few are all failures in personal life, while not being able to retain a great job, being chucked out from responsibility, not getting a desired promotion etc can be professional failures.
How does one come out of the dejection one gets from a failure. Failure does not mean that one should shut away from the world, and lead a lonely life, unable to take the shame and burden of failure. On the other hand, it should make us stronger in mind and spirit to meet up with failure and take them as opportunities to learn and improve ourselves.
Here I am listing easy twenty points gathered from different sources on the Internet which we need to understand on how to overcome failures and leverage on it.
1, Focus on improving what has performed in the past than trying on something totally new
2. Understand our mistakes and own up to it, only then can we come out of it.
3. Never blame anyone for our failures, If we want the world to change, first let ourselves change
4. Love what you do, unless we love what we do, we cannot give our full to it and succeed.
5. Have a person to help you in the darkest times is more than anything in the world, like a mentor to give practical sound advice
6. No one is in perfect control of what is happening, nor do we know. There are lot unseen things, take life as it comes, try one's level best to be in control
 |
| Eisenhover Matrix, concentrate on square 2. |
7.
Utilise time very carefully as it is the most precious resource. The Eisenhover matrix can help us prioritise activities
8. External factors of motivation may not help us all the time, we need to push ourselves harder many a time. Unless we push ourselves, nothing works for us.Motivation is temporal, but the pain and hardwork one puts is permanent.
9. Always be open to speak one's mind, never hide anything. We may earn a temporary discomfort, but in the long run we will have a clean heart and mind
10. Lose oneself at times, to find oneself. Never be afraid of failures, as it comes time and again. Take failures in our stride and then we will appreciate how much it has helped to shape our successes.
11. Very frequently our ego could be the greatest impediment to our success, shed it if need be
12. Try to tackle problems head on, instead of procrastination and delaying a decision to a later date. Even if it is a wrong decision, the earlier we learn from it, more beneficial it is for us as we can try some other alternatives without wasting time
13. Listen to feedback, whatever be it. It can help us reprioritise our preferences
14. Look at the bigger picture than short sighted view, DO NOT MISS THE WOOD FOR THE TREES !
15. People usually lose sight of their initial goal, reason or passion as they go ahead in life. Never succumb to it. Always stick to your initial passion whatever happens.
16. Failures are not the end of life, it is just part of the experiment, the experiment is not over as yet. Just have the patience to see the experiment through.
17. Success or failure can be whether we are at it or not. If we give up early enough, that is the end of it.
18. Failure may sometimes want us to change our priorities, be prepared for it
19. Self-belief and self-confidence of our basic abilities is important
20. As Winston Churchill once said, success is the ability to move from failure to failure without losing the enthusiasm, attitude regarding failure is what is important. It is not the end of the world.
21. Having the courage to pursue and not give up.
The underlying point I wish to make is - Patience is finally what pays off.
References :
1. Sean Kim, 10 lessons learned from failing, Huffington Post, June 2014
2. Boitnott, John, 5 tough lessons learned from embracing failure, The Entrepreneur, July, 2014
3. Eion Katherine, 10 great lessons highly successful people have learned from failure,
www.lifehack.org, November, 2015.
