Fear of failure holds many people back. There are many great quotes about dealing with or learning from failure. We like quoting them. It’s easy to read what others say and agree. But behaving the way they say takes more courage.
I get it. I’ve been there. I just failed at something and learned how much I needed courage to fail well. Failure can be our teacher if we let it.
Learning from failure takes owning our mindset, our emotions, and our choices.
Learning from failure takes owning our mindset, our emotions, and our choices. Click To TweetA failure is not always a mistake, it may simply be the best one can do under the circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying. —B. F. Skinner
MY STORY
What did I fail at? Opening, no, running a profitable online store. I successfully opened it. It was challenging and fun.
There was so much to learn, and I learned it. I did it. I was so proud of myself. And I should be. Do you know I’m 60 years old? There are so many people my age that struggle with technology. Even many more that won’t try to learn. Well BAM! I opened an online store. It was pretty. I designed products. They were nice. It was fun. I accomplished a lot. I learned the email sign up and campaigns. I used a marketing app. I imported things from China. I learned about sales tax and got an app for that. I sold products.
I succeeded A LOT.
But it was time-consuming and it became a distraction to my writing. It was easy to get sucked into the fun of creating my designs and products. Before I knew it, hours had passed. That wasn’t acceptable. I’m working on preparing my next book for publication. So, I stopped putting the time in to create and market. Sales stopped but the fees to keep the store open didn’t.
As I was working on that book that’s coming out later this year, I had an epiphany that I needed to stop. It was failing to be profitable. Failing to support my message. Instead, it was a drain. It made me sad.
This new creation of mine wasn’t working but could I let it go?
Failure isn’t the end of the story unless we decide that it is. It can be a new beginning. Click To TweetYou build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. —Johnny Cash
EMOTIONS
We get attached to our creations. I had grieving emotions I needed to deal with in a healthy way. Granted these emotions weren’t large, but they were still there. I’ve learned ignoring them isn’t healthy no matter how trivial it might seem.
What I needed to do was take ownership of my emotions: how I felt about my creation and how I felt about letting it go. I had to take ownership of the failure and process it. Taking ownership is the core message of my new book: Because You Matter: how to take ownership of your life so you can really live.
Overcoming the emotions of grief is done using grief work. To process my sorrow and honor my journey, I bought two mugs for myself as souvenirs. This was my act of grief work and it worked. After I made the decision to close the store and did the grief work, I gained a sense of relief.
I learned that in failure there are many lessons. When we fail, we also succeed. We need to look and process both sides, then begin to redirect your energies to our next adventure.
Keeping the lessons and feeding the joy of growth is failing well.
Keeping the lessons and feeding the joy of growth is failing well. Click To TweetSuccess is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts. —John Wooden
FAILURE CAN BE A BEGINNING
We can take ownership of our failures and learn. That’s what I’m doing. But even more, because this failure is helping me look at past failures to learn from them. Plus, this failure might be the best thing that’s happened in my business.
Failure isn’t the end of the story unless we decide that it is. It can be a new beginning.
WHAT NEXT
If you’ve failed at something:
- Don’t condemn yourself.
- Learn as much as you can.
- Celebrate whatever success is within that journey.
- Redirect your energies in a new direction.
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Really good post Danielle! Sharing a real story makes your point better than all of the quotes about dealing with or learning from failure. Right on!
Thank you, Michael. I’m glad my story helped you.
Thanks for reading and commenting.