I listened to a podcast recently on “Failure”. One of the suggestions was to ask yourself everyday “Where did you fail today?” I was blown away by that question? Why would I want to focus on a failure every single day? This really got me thinking.
Failure is defined as lack of success. There are other definitions but this one summed it up for me.
One of life’s biggest fears is Fear of Failure. Fear of failing is the main reason people do not achieve goals they set out to do. Fear of failing keeps us stuck.
What if we change our mindset about failure? Instead, what if we tell ourselves that we will learn from every experience. That if we set a goal that is not achieved, instead of saying we failed, what if we dig deeper and understand why we didn’t achieve the goal. That we ask ourselves what lessons did we learn in the process and how can we do things differently?
A few years ago, I was in a job interview. As part of the interview, they asked me to describe a situation where I overcame a difficulty. One question that stands out is “describe a time when you have failed and how did you react to it?”
Thinking quick on my feet, I replied, “I have not failed”. I explained my answer in a way that if things did not turn out the way I had planned them to, I used this as a learning experience.
They loved that answer! And yes I received the job offer.
All situations are opportunities for personal and professional growth.
Instead of looking at situations where you have failed ask yourself “what did you learn?”
I have some fun ideas and goals I want to achieve in 2021. They will be hard and outside my comfort zone. Instead of asking myself “where did you fail today?”, I will be asking myself, “what did you learn today?”