Thomas Edison said….I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that wouldn’t work.
How fast you bounce back when something goes wrong? How long does it take for you to get back up when failure knocks you flat on your a$$?
Maybe you got shot down by your boss. Maybe a campaign you spent months on doesn’t generate the numbers you expected. Whatever the cause, failure is going to happen to everyone at some point.
Your success is really determined by how fast you pick yourself up, dust off and jump back into the next project. Unsuccessful people wallow. They beat themselves up. They sit back on the couch and watch marathons of Netflix shows while their creative energy just leaks out between the cushions. Instead of dissecting the problem, they let their self doubt, fears and judgment keep them from moving forward.
The great news is you can learn to speed up the recovery. In just three easy steps you can turn on the burn and get ready to get back into the game.
- Forgive yourself. No really. Use nice talk when you think about your role and the project. If you wouldn’t talk to a co-worker that way then don’t talk to yourself that way.
- Examine what went wrong. Don’t let emotions cloud your analysis of the project. Learn from your mistakes and find ways to prevent the same thing from happening on the next project.
- Move on. The best way to get over it is to dive into another project (and if your desk is like mine, you’re sure to have one waiting). You know the old saying, “get back on the horse that bucks you off.” The feeling of successfully pulling a project together will make the sting of a past failure fade into the mist
Here’s a quick recap you can keep – failure-worksheet
