5 Ways to Fix Failure – Or Prevent It!

Why is it that we cheer SUCCESS and yet most people expect failure?  A dear friend of mine shared two ideas with me, neither of which I liked, but both of which seemed to be true over time.  First, he said that people are motivated more by the fear of loss than the desire for gain.  Second, an the one that irritated me most, was his statement: “No good deed goes unpunished.”  If you want to find success then adopt these 5 ways to fix failure.

Both of these statements or concepts rubbed against my grain.  Yet, having worked with thousands of people over my close to 40 year career, the truth is – FEAR – is likely the most powerful motivating emotional force that humans experience.

So…I decided to look at the idea of what motivates FAILURE and address how to fix that.  Let’s take a look at 5 Ways to Fix Failure (or prevent it).

1. Understand the power of Rationalization

People who have faced failure have two choices – accept responsibility for what you did that contributed to the failure or rationalize that you had no control and that you were a victim.  People with a victim mentality are generally experts at rationalizing why something happened that, of course, could not be their fault.  Winners understand that failure is a natural part of the process of winning and seek to understand what they did or had control of that could have created a positive outcome.  From that analysis they create opportunities to win.  Key – when you hear yourself rationalizing personal behavior you should look in the mirror and ask yourself if you want to be a victim or a victor.  Analyze don’t rationalize.

Step one in the 5 ways to fix failure

2. Learn from past Mistakes

The old statement – “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again” is a simple yet powerful statement of wisdom.  Failure is the catalyst to discover what does work and what does work leads to success.  Seek to discover from failure what happened?  Why didn’t the action or activity work?  What could have been done different to achieve a better result?  The truth is a careful analysis of what went wrong, why and what can be done different is a powerful process that we all do quite naturally in seeking success in our lives – either personally or professionally.

Of course, it’s been said over and over (and I have no idea who to give credit to since I’ve heard it said everywhere), but the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

Learning from past mistakes is the first major step to achieving success.

Step two in the 5 ways to fix failure

3. Evaluate your attitude

“I’m just not lucky.  Nothing ever happens good in my life.  You’re the ‘golden child.'”  All of these are statements I’ve heard from people who find reason after reason to justify their state in life.  Perhaps some people are, by nature, pessimistic. One thing that I’ve been able to observe over a number of years is that people who believe in their success and have a can do attitude – naturally find success.  Some call it the law of attraction.  Regardless of label the fact remains that you attract to you what you focus on.  To that end there is a significant lesson to be learned.  If you say, for example, “I want to be rich one day,” the likelihood is you will never be rich.  But wait Chuck, I thought you said that you attract what you focus on!  That’s true, but what, in this example, is being focused on is “wanting to be rich” not BEING RICH.

The power of ATTITUDE cannot be over emphasized.  At issue, however, is understanding how ATTITUDE works and more importantly how to harness it.

Step three in the 5 ways to fix failure

4. Persistence pays off

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  There’s that sentence again.  While it is appropriate when discussing learning from past mistakes, the reality is the difference between folks who succeed and those who fail is one simple word – persistence.  It isn’t the smartest man/woman that wins, nor the most talented one, but rather the one that never quits.  Action that results in failure that results in evaluation and change, that results in action, that begets additional change, done over and over will produce success.

To be clear…repeating the same failures over and over isn’t the proper application of persistence.  Applying the top three ways to fix failure and adding the power of persistence is a formula for creating positive outcomes.

Step four in the 5 ways to fix failure

5. Tap into the power of belief

Here’s a question – the answer to which is critical when considering how to create success or fix failure.  Do you believe in yourself? Do you believe that you are worthy of success?

You see, over the past 30+ years, I have seen the following become a truth in the live of many – if you are always trying to find yourself, then you believe that what you seek is outside of you.  And it stands to reason, that if what you seek is outside then you don’t have it and therein lies the biggest lie of all.  You have the power to create the life you were born to live.  I know that and with every fiber of my being I believe that and that belief creates the opportunity for success.

If, on the other hand, you don’t have the conviction or belief that you can create or deserve success, then you’ll likely find yourself in the middle of the road looking at others envious of their success.

Don’t look outside and listen to the naysayers who would tell you that you’re not worthy.  Their objective is to do to you what they are doing to themselves – create a community of failures who can rationalize that success is only reserved for the few.  That is untrue.  Success is the opposite of failure and the difference between the two is a matter of choices and following these simple steps in the 5 ways to fix failure!

How about sharing your successes here!

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