Failure is an event

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Several years ago I heard Zig Ziglar say at a conference, "Failure is an event, not a person.  Yesterday ended last night and today is a brand new day."  I have used that truth as I've coached people who felt like they were failures because something they tried didn't work out very well.  I've used it in some of my sermons as I was trying to instill hope in people who may have felt they had made too many wrong choices in their lives.  I've also had opportunities to remind myself of this truth when I've been tempted to get down on myself.

Anyone who attempts to do something will fail at times.  We may think we've thought through every possible situation, but suddently something happens that we never anticipated and we find ourselves battling yet another set back.  Sometimes the failure is rather small and except for the embarrassment there is little impact.  Other times the failure comes with a lot of zeros at the end, and some of these can be very harmful to the future success of our business.  But, the road to success is full of potholes marked failure.  Many successful entrepreneurs tell us that until we have experienced enough failures we will never be successful.

Most successful people I know will tell you the secret of their success is experience, and the way to gain experience is to fail and fail often.  The key here though is to learn something from the failure.  I once read a chapter in a book titled "Never waste a good crisis."  The idea behind that chapter was that if we were going to go through a crisis anyway we should learn all we could from it.  I thought it was good advice when I read it and still do.  The best book I've ever read on failure comes from John Maxwell titled Failing Forward: Turning Mistakes into Stepping Stones for Success.  Maxwell also promotes a positive view of failure and challenges his readers to use every failure as one more step to achieving the success they want.

However, to be able to do that requires that we learn from our mistakes.  It's OK to make mistakes; it's not OK to keep making the same mistakes.  When we find we have failed at some endeavor we need to take time to analyze why we failed and determine what we could have done differently that would have led to a better outcome.  Only when we do that will we be able to apply that learning to the next similar situation that comes our way.

You may want to have a coach help you with this analysis.  Sometimes it's hard for us to be objective about our own mistakes.  We may either go too easy on ourselves or too hard.  Having an outside person who can take an objective approach to our failures can be a valuable asset to our personal growth.  I've been privileged to serve as a coach for a number of people and currently have a few open slots for two or three more.  If you believe having a coach could help you work through some of the issues you are facing feel free to contact me.  Just respond to this post with your email address, and I'll be glad to get back to you.