Dealing with Failure
Dealing with Failure
By Shane Sauer
“It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.” Bill Gates
In our discussion of habit change this month, we’ve explored the importance of emotion and how celebrations of success can motivate you and move you past motivation.
But there is a darker side to habit change too: Failure.
Let’s face it. We’ve all tried things and had them go south on us. It’s part of being human. What really matters is the way you perceive instances of failure and how you respond to them.
To have a useful perception of failure you need a working definition of what failure is and is not.
Failure is not a setback. Setbacks are minor bumps along the road and they happen when you don't anticipate distractions. There is nothing about a setback that doesn’t let you continue with a plan.
Failure is when the plan to achieve a goal becomes impossible. It means you need to do some rethinking and change your plan.
Consider the example of building a habit to exercise more. Not making it to the gym because of a crisis at work is a setback. Planning to go to the gym during your lunch break and then realizing that on a regular basis, you don’t have enough time to get there. That is a failure of the plan because it will not help you achieve your goal.
If you were to perceive the setback as a failure, you might quit before you’ve even given that plan a chance to work! More importantly, if you perceive yourself as a failure instead of the plan, then you’re likely to give up on the larger goal rather than simply change course.
In other words, both situations are an opportunity to learn rather than a personal affront.
And here’s where we really get “meta”. Perceiving setbacks and failures for what they really are is a habit you have to practice.
To help, try these steps:
Plan how you’ll create the new habit, complete with details.
Include a small win in your plan. That way you can maximize celebrations, minimize setbacks, and identify failure (when you regularly can’t get the small win).
Review your progress and your setbacks.
Adjust the plan as needed or make a new one if it is a failure.
Don’t give up unless your priorities change and the goal is no longer important.
I do realize that this is much easier said than done. It seems like too much work for you, consider asking for help. I work with all my clients in this way and I'd be happy to help you too!
“A 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