Losing is a bigger part of life than winning.
Weāve all experienced failures, in our careers, educations, sports, relationships and family. Failures themselves shouldnāt define us in whole, but it does define a part of us - since it is something weāve experienced and lived through.
How it defines us is in our hands.
We can take it on board as a learning experience or we could let it bog us down.
Personally Iāve always found shrugging off failures hard, to get closure Iāve always had to do a little retrospective or an After Action Report (US military terminology I picked up from David Goggins!).
Now, just to be clear, Iām not advocating people to not put in the hard yards to succeed, the message is to uncover the learning behind failures.
Tactics for dealing with failures š§
Retrospect - having a structured approach to reflect and retrospect about this experience is a great way to plan whatās next. Write down exactly what happened, the good, the bad, the ugly, how you felt before, during, after and what you can do better next time. In the software world we have fortnightly retrospectives - hereās a Trello template board you can follow. Having a personal retrospective is quite similar to journaling - it gives us clarity of thought.
Seek guidance - Once you have some idea of what went wrong, seek out people who have been on a similar journey and pick their brain (buy them a coffee at least for their time). Often there are people who have failed multiple times before they ever got a whiff of success. Learning from the more experienced will be a valuable exercise for both of you.
Something to try šØ
ā List 2 things you've failed at in the last few months, think about what you could have done differently to succeed and if it's worth doing it again.
What are the systems, habits and processes to help you get there?
š Sticky/Post-it notes to remind yourself of the new habits youāre trying to build to bounce back from your failures. Remember: Habits > Goals.
Something to read š
š§ āCanāt Hurt Meā by David Goggins
To be honest, I didnāt read this, I listened to the audiobook via Audible. The experience awesome. It had Goggins and the narrator having a conversation here and there - it almost felt like a podcast and I felt involved.
Failing is okay.
Be open, honest and true to yourself when you do fail.
Use it to sharpen your axe and cut down the next challenge in your way.
If youāve got any other strategies learn from failures, shoot me a reply, Iād love to read all about them.
Thanks,
Pavan
Reply - pav@goalpostapp.dev
Tweet - @pavanraju023
Written with ā¤ļø from Sydney, Australia š¦šŗ