Like success, failure is many things to many people. With Positive Mental Attitude, failure is a learning experience, a rung on the ladder, a plateau at which to get your thoughts in order and prepare to try again.–W. Clement Stone
If you will just set your mind to learn from your failures, then you will actually benefit from them. When you consistently use failure as a stepping stone to success, you will not worry so much about failing in the first place. In fact, you will start to look forward to failure as a means of getting you farther along the path to success. The ability to learn from your mistakes is valuable in all aspects of your lives.
If you want to learn from your mistakes, you have to maintain a teachable attitude and ask yourself some questions each time you encounter adversity:
- What was the cause of the failure? The process of learning begins with identification of the cause. Was it me, another person, a no-win situation, or just a mistake?
- What can I learn from what happened? We always need to be asking ourselves what I could do differently or what I can improve on.
- Who can help me ? Seek advice from someone who has successfully handled this situation. Learn from others.
- How can I turn this into a success? Determine what went wrong but more importantly, figure out how to benefit from the situation.
- What do I do next? In their book Everyone’s a Coach, Don Shula and Ken Blanchard said, “Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven’t learned a thing until you can take action and use it.”
Years ago I went on my first mountain climbing trip and because I didn’t know any better, I didn’t pack my clothes in plastic bags or waterproof my tent. After two days of rain and nothing dry to wear, I learned a valuable lesson. The next time in the mountains I packed everything in garbage bags and waterproofed my tent. This is an example of taking failure and turning it into knowledge and then turning the learning into action.
Jim Rohn said, “Don’t let your learning lead to knowledge, let your learning lead to action.”
Have an awesome day.
