Recovering from Failure

Even with the best intentions, any plan can lead to failure. Many successful people have failed multiple times.  When a person does fail, they need to recover positively from the experience.

​The steps to recovering from failure include:

• Treating Yourself Kindly
• Accepting Mistakes
• Learning from the Experience

People often berate themselves more harshly for failure then they would another person.  Here again, the scientists at the University of California Berkley point out that treating yourself kindly after failure helps stop a person from fearing failure in the future. If a person makes the repercussions of failure too hard on themselves, they may develop a negative self-image or negative self-talk that causes them to fear the next challenge.

A person also needs to accept their mistakes when they fail.  Without admitting responsibility, they will repeat their mistakes over and over, limiting their success and developing a greater fear of failure each time they face a challenge.  Recovering from failure includes preparing for the next challenge by accepting mistakes and correcting them. If a person views failure as a learning experience, there is more to gain from failure and less to fear.  Educators teach students that failure isn’t the end of learning, instead, failure is the beginning of success.

Recovering from failure involves learning from the experience, so a person is better prepared to succeed when facing another challenge. Fear of failure is often fear of an unknown outcome. Learning from failure removes that fear because a person knows what does lead to failure and can make another choice instead.