{"id":5041,"date":"2016-03-12T08:30:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-12T08:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetofsuccess.com\/blog\/?p=5041"},"modified":"2020-02-11T16:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T16:30:03","slug":"steps-to-overcome-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetofsuccess.com\/blog\/steps-to-overcome-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Steps to Overcome Failure on the Road to Success"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was in high school, I really struggled with math. Somehow, my brain was just not wired for it, especially geometry. But to get into college, I had to have 3 years of math, so I struggled along, have to admit I cheated a bit, and got through Algebra I and basic geometry. When I hit Algebra II, I knew I was sunk. Never having really mastered Algebra I, now I was faced with a course that built on that earlier one. My teacher was not a particularly compassionate guy, and at one point said to me, \u201cYou will never get into college, and if you do, you will never meet the math requirement there to get a degree.\u201d My response to that statement? \u201cWatch me!\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Plot Thickens<\/h5>\n

Guess what happened next. I failed the course. And I know that teacher was probably smugly telling himself that he had been right all along. (I really do dislike smug people).<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cFailure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.\u201d<\/em>
\nDenis Waitley<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I considered my options. As a junior in high school, I had to fix this failure if I intended to get into college. I could re-take the course next year (same teacher \u2013 I think not) or I could find another way around the \u201cwall.\u201d The solution was to find a summer school course taught by someone else who might be a bit more understanding of my situation.<\/p>\n

\"Overcome
Failure is like rain. It will eventually go away and the sun will shine on your road to success<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That summer school teacher saved me. In six weeks, she taught me more about algebra than I had ever learned at my school, and I came out of that experience with a \u201cbadge of success\u201d (and, oh yes, a \u201cB\u201d in the course) that I wanted to flaunt in front of that nasty Algebra II teacher. I didn\u2019t do that, but the experience that summer taught me a critical lesson \u2013 when faced with failure, there are always ways to get around it, to push through it, and to replace it with success. I have approached failure with that attitude from high school forward. While we cannot claim that a failure is a success<\/a>, we can use and abuse those failures for our own benefit. Here are 5 steps to deal with failure. Trust me \u2013 they work.<\/p>\n

How to Overcome Failure on the Road to Success?<\/h2>\n

1. Give Your Emotions Validity<\/h3>\n

When that high school teacher made his statement to me, my initial response was defiant. That was a \u201cknee-jerk\u201d response, made in self-defense. While I sounded tough, inside I was scared, upset, hurt, and wondering if he was right. That night and for several nights after that, I had to deal with all of these emotions. I cried, I had long conversations with myself, I expressed to friends how much I hated that math teacher; I also secretly kind of hated myself for being so poor at math. All of these I had to work through. It\u2019s called \u201ccatharsis\u201d in literature. By getting everything out, you will be able to calm yourself, and then rationality will take over. Once you become rational<\/a>, you can re-group.<\/p>\n

2. Accept the Failure<\/h3>\n

One of the easiest things to do is to blame others. Why didn\u2019t that math teacher do more? Why didn\u2019t he explain things differently? It\u2019s always easy to blame yourself when failure happens. \u201cI am really stupid; I should have worked harder.\u201d The truth is, sometimes circumstances and you and others just collide to create a failure. You can only be responsible for you, so you have to focus on what your part was and how you can identify exactly how the failure occurred. This is the only way to move forward. So, here is what you need to do \u2013 be objective, stick to the facts, and stop with the blame, the judgment, or trying to justify what your actions were. It\u2019s in the past. I admit I spent some time justifying why I didn\u2019t take some action to get tutoring or extra help, but none of those justifications changed anything. The reality was I failed and had to fix that, and I had to look at the situation very objectively. There are a couple of ways to do this:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You could write it all down.<\/strong> How did the failure happen? Write it down step-by-step without judging anyone.<\/li>\n
  2. You could discuss it<\/strong> with someone you trust. It will help if you are in denial about your part in the failure. My best friend reminded me, for example,about the number of times I just gave up on my homework because I didn\u2019t understand how to do it. And when I accepted that, I was able to think about what I could have done differently \u2013 maybe start fixing things early on before they snowball to big things that can\u2019t be fixed. That was an important lesson for me \u2013 to learn to identify the small problems along the way and address them.<\/li>\n
  3. Doing these things<\/strong> \u2013 analyzing how the failure happened \u2013 will help you accept it<\/strong>. People who cannot accept their part in a failure<\/a> are doomed to repeat failure in the future, because they don\u2019t accept their part in it. My part was clearly not taking some assertive action early on, and that was a good lesson. When I took college algebra, I got extra help from the very beginning, and the \u201cB\u201d I got was like and \u201cA+\u201d to me.<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cAll or nothing\u201d thinkers have a hard time accepting failure<\/strong> because to them, you are either a total failure or a total winner \u2013 there is nothing in-between. So, if they accept their part in a failure, then their whole lives are in ruins. Still others have difficulty because they fear what others may think of them if they acknowledge their failings. There are also those who must be right no matter what. In this case, blame is always placed solely on other people or circumstances. They are doomed as well. Don\u2019t you be any of these types.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    3. Action or Inaction?<\/h3>\n

    Admittedly, some failures cannot be fixed. But that doesn\u2019t mean that you don\u2019t take action. While in college, I had a great idea for a business \u2013 I decided to sell advertising to go inside the bathrooms on campus. It would be tasteful \u2013 just nice colorful poster-type ads in frames to go on the inside doors of stalls and above the urinals. I got a few friends together and we approached the \u201cpowers that be\u201d on campus. We received permission to do it as long as the ads were tasteful, didn\u2019t support anything illegal and if we dedicated some space in our large frames to campus events. Done and done. We bought the frames; we found an art student to design the ads pretty cheap and a local printer willing to cut us a deal. What we couldn\u2019t get? Advertisers. Much as we tried, only a few bars and restaurants were willing to put ads in bathrooms \u2013 it was a pretty conservative town, and the concept was difficult for them. We failed, and we lost a good chunk of money doing it. No further action needed to be taken. However, we managed to sell the frames and had a good laugh in the end.
    \nThe question became this \u2013 did we want to try another business? Yes, but we knew a bit more this time, especially that we needed to make sure there was a market for what we were offering before we plunked down any money. (We were pretty broke anyway). We started a concierge business. Students are busy people, and lots of them were willing to pay us to get their car license plates\/registrations renewed, to pick up their dry cleaning, to do their personal and grocery shopping, etc. We expanded into the town with our business and actually did pretty well \u2013 well enough that we didn\u2019t have to take out any student loans for our senior years at least. That’s what overcoming failure is all about; taking the remains of a failure to build a brighter future.<\/p>\n

    What that failure taught me was tenacity. Get back up, shake off the dust, and get back on board. Taking action in a new direction and having success restores all of the doubts you had about yourself. The other thing it taught me was to think through every aspect of something before jumping into it.<\/p>\n

    4. Realistic Optimism<\/h3>\n

    I love this term, because it combines the two things that you have to have when you have experienced failure and need to start again.<\/p>\n