No one likes or wants to fail, but in order to succeed, failure is sometimes part of the process. Everyone is confronted with their own challenges, setbacks and failures.
Instead of feeling bad about yourself when things go bad, try to reframe your thoughts. Think of all the positive things you have learned along your life journey rather than ruminating on what didn’t work.
Set some time aside to evaluate what led to the failure. Identify any mistakes you made and analyze what you can improve upon in the future. Instead of dwelling on your setback, allow the feelings to fuel your energy to hyperfocus on the next, new and exciting opportunity.
BOUNCING BACK MENTALLY
Settle down and think deeply about what your true purpose is, as it relates to your career. Your mission is to determine what meaningful work is for you. Having a purpose provides you the drive to overcome all the obstacles in your way, as you try to rise above the setback. Once you determine your “why” for achieving something, you can progress to your “how.”
Start putting together a roadmap toward success. This will include short, medium and long-term goals. If you don’t create a road map, you’ll be aimless and get easily derailed.
Target personal development. Immerse yourself in motivational stories and find inspiration in others’ turnarounds against all odds. Visualize future success vividly by wiring your brain to expect achievement by immersing in possibility. Stay hungry. Let past failures fuel deeper passion for your long-term goals rather than surrendering ambition.
YOUR MINDSET MATTERS
Ignore the haters and don’t concern yourself with what everyone else is doing in their life. The only person you should compare yourself to is yourself. Every day, measure your progress by how you are doing compared to the person you were yesterday.
Everyone feels fear and uncomfortable uncertainty at times. People pile up all of their bad breaks and then it can begin to feel like a boulder you have to push uphill. Instead, keep meticulous track of each and every victory, no matter how small it may seem. Celebrate every gain you made or goals scored at work or in your job search. With all the small wins, your confidence will grow and people will notice it.
Fight back against your monkey brain that keeps telling you negative things in your head. Put a stop to the endless loop of ruminations. Pay attention to how you look, speak, act and interact with people daily. You want to look the part of the person you aspire to be.
Read, listen to podcasts and consume all the information you can about your chosen field. Go to networking events and conferences in your space. Seek out mentors and sponsors to help you succeed. Go out for lunch, dinner or a cup of coffee with different people from the office. Find people who are more successful than you to learn from and gain ideas and access to opportunities.
REGULAR SELF-REFLECTION ENGAGEMENTS
Continually analyze failures objectively. Identify the specific mistakes, knowledge gaps or judgments errors that led to your failure and document these insights. Recognize failures as feedback and opportunities for growth, not signals to give up. Don’t beat yourself up, as setbacks prepare you for later wins - if you learn from them. Always work on improving your skills and qualifications. Take online courses, attend workshops or volunteer to gain relevant experience.
BECOMING ANTI-FRAGILE
Don't repeat the same approaches expecting different results. Work on developing "antifragility.” The concept of antifragility, are occurrences that are difficult to predict that have serious repercussions, is a system that withstands chaos, stressors, shocks, volatility, mistakes and failures. With antifragility, you grow stronger with failure, build resilience and improve the more you are stress tested.
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