Why you really don’t need to fear failure

Although we don’t always like to admit it, one of the biggest reasons we don’t always go for what we want in work - or life - is that we are afraid of failure.

Why does the idea of failure hold such power over us? Actually, we recover from failures all the time. Consider this:

How many relationships have you “failed” at?

Unless you married your childhood sweetheart, the chances are that you lie somewhere in the range “less than Madonna, more than Lady Di” (to quote Andi McDowell in Four Weddings and A Funeral). And although it can really hurt, we do eventually get over our past loves and venture back out into dating territory. And let’s face it, there’s not much that’s tougher than that!

At school were you ever REALLY BAD at anything?

When I was 12 my school sports report for the year read simply “Sarah’s ball skills need improving.” A whole page was set aside for comments and I secured just that one damning sentence.

What were you terrible at at school? Did it irredeemably blight the rest of your life?

Ever had an interview but didn’t get the job?

I still vividly recall, 15 years later, two interviews I had for a legal training contract. The partner terminated one after 7 minutes, by asking me if I had any questions. At the end of the other, I reached for a Kit Kat from the plate in the middle of the table. “Take a few” the interviewer graciously remarked “you might as well get something from this interview“. (So I did.)

But when we think about it, we wouldn’t expect to get every job we interviewed for, to get As in every subject or to land the perfect relationship first go. A certain amount of failure is normal.

Reminding ourselves that we are accustomed to failure - that it’s a common and overcomeable part of our lives - is a good way to reduce its power.

What have been the major failures, or emotional low points, in your life?

Take some time to write them down. A very helpful exercise is to think about what you’ve learnt from each one (compassion, patience, forethought?…likely many important things).

But the main point is to notice that you’ve made it past them. You’re still here - presumably relatively unscathed. That is, getting up every day, breathing, getting dressed, eating, able to work, make friends, bring up your children and find your house keys (ok maybe that’s pushing it).

So when you look back at those difficult times, what strategies did you, perhaps subconsciously, use to get through them?

I remember an exercise I did years ago when training to volunteer at a Drugs Project in Bristol. The trainer asked us to draw a timeline of our life and mark the really tough points. Then we recalled what we’d done each time to cope.

I realised that one of my main coping mechanisms is to immerse myself in information. When my friend was diagnosed with leukaemia, I scoured the internet until I became an amateur expert on her strain of the disease. After a painful relationship break-up I read everything I could lay my hands on about the meaning of love, life…you name it…I became quite the philosopher.

What got you through your hard times?

Know that you can tackle any new situation - a business failure, a job loss - with these same strategies. Failure becomes then not something to fear, but as Henry Ford wisely observed “simply the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”

Good places to find out more about bouncing back from failure:

Thank you to Ellie who recently introduced her blog to me. It’s entirely devoted to the subject of resilience, and sparked the idea for this article: www.bouncebackcafe.com/

My new friend Sital has written a great post on the advantages of “screwing things up” - www.6figurecareermanagement.com/cvsresumes/be-average-and-have-lots-of-goes/

And a good book on the subject: www.amazon.com/Resilience-Factor-Essential-Overcoming-Inevitable/dp/0767911903