Thursday, October 13, 2011

Learn From Failure: How It Increases Your Chances Of Succeeding

Learn from failure, you probably have heard it all from articles, stories and books. I won't bore you with them here.

This article is to drive home some key points about learning from failure. Lessons you probably are very familiar with but need reminder about. Or if you are new to this thing called failure then it will serve as a springboard to better success. I hope.

You hear stories about failure. You hear stories about success. You hear how failure is the mother of all successes. Yet, you are still fearful of failure. As if it is a black mark that will appear in your report card of life if you did fail. And fail you will, if you are like the rest of us mere mortals. Does that mean you stop trying?

1. Take The Risk and Pay the Price

Nothing ventured, nothing gain. You have to be willing to take the risk venture beyond the comfort zone regardless of what area you are in to gain some form of success. Think about the entrepreneurs, scientists, leaders and businesses which took the path less trodden and how they were rewarded handsomely.

If you are willing to pay the price with the risk you take, then the returns may just surprise you. But, but what if I fail, you ask.

2. It's OK to Fail, Really

Yes, it's OK to fail. The adage we learn from failure is true. Be open with your mind, eyes and ears. The lessons are there for you to understand and do better next time. Think about what you have done right, what you can do better and what you should stop doing. That is one of the easiest ways to analyze how to learn from failure. One side point, in cases like these I dislike to use the word failure. Setback is my preferred word.

3. Experience is the Best Teacher

Think about this, if you do not fail in any of your endeavor, how do you learn to be better? How do you become wiser? People say experience is the best teacher. If you accept that to be true then you need to accept failure as one of the many lessons you gain from experience. So, you get to learn from failure. It's that simple. Think about failure as lessons paid in the journey of life.

4. Freedom to Fail

Allow yourself the freedom to fail if you want to learn from failure. When you are too cautious, you do not allow yourself to take any risks. If you are safe all the time, then you are not giving yourself the opportunity to learn from failure. Give yourself the freedom to fail and see how the lessons of success open up for you.

5. Fear of Failure

The fear of failure may not necessarily be bad as it propels you to succeed. Some people use it as a motivating factor to ensure they succeed. As long as you do not get paralyzed into inaction and limit your appetite for taking risk, I believe the fear of failure as a propelling factor can be of good use.

6. Welcome Failure

There can be no success without failure. You should welcome failure as an opportunity to learn and you will learn from failure. The fees for learning from failure may seem too high sometimes, but in the long run you will somehow discover it a worthwhile price to pay.

Yun Siang Long, or Long as he is popularly known, spent 16 years in 3 multinational ad agencies where he also trained people in areas of career management.

Thanks to Yun Siang Long / Careerealism
http://www.careerealism.com/how-learn-failure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+careerealism+%28CAREEREALISM%29

 

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