How to reframe failure and turn it into success

Do we ever really fail at anything?  No, I’m not sure we do.  Things may not go to plan, you may be disappointed that you haven’t achieved what you set out to do, but we always learn from our so called ‘failures’ so where does this idea of 'failure' being a ‘bad’ thing come from?

In a workout situation you train to ‘failure’ but that never feels like you’ve ‘failed’ does it?  No!  In fact, it makes you feel damn proud that you’ve pushed your body and mind to your absolute limit.  It’s a good thing, you’re growing stronger every time you train to ‘failure’.  When I run in races, and especially marathons, I take something from each race so I'm stronger and better the next time.  I don't feel like I've failed if things haven't quite gone to plan.  So why do we treat 'failure' so differently in other situations?

Two of my most memorable so-called failures were just after I left school and these two events quite literally shaped my whole working life.  At 16 I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do with my life and I somehow found myself doing a BTEC in Catering & Hotel Management - I mean, catering, come on (oh the irony for those who know me well!).  The second I had to put my hand up a chicken’s bum and rip its guts out, I was out of there!  However, the hotel management side was a whole different ball game and although I quickly discovered that management wasn’t for me, I learnt so much about how to deal with people from all walks of life and I loved the admin and organisation side of things.  Despite things not working out, I left with some seriously brilliant life lessons in my back pocket.

From there, I ended up in a sewing factory!  I was a college dropout and my parents weren’t prepared to pay my way so I had to get a job and pretty damn quick.  From the moment I started that job, I hated it with a passion.  I hated the environment, I hated the monotony of the work, I hated the regimented start, finish and break times and I hated the cliques of the other women.  I ended up staying there for 18 months.  Why?  Because with overtime it paid a decent wage.  So, I stuck with it and worked all hours I could in order to save up enough money to put myself through evening classes in office admin.  Within 18 months I’d learnt how to type, do shorthand, word processing, excel, powerpoint, access (remember that?!), came runner-up in 'IT User of the Year' at Barnsley College (lol!) and bagged myself a great job.

From these two memorable ‘failures’ at the start of my career I’d learnt so much that I would never let myself down so badly again.  My next major failure was my first marriage but let’s not go there … although I learnt lots from that too!!

I don't like the word failure because you really do learn so much more from these moments in life than you ever do from success, even though it may not feel like it at the time.  We make mistakes throughout all our lives, they can be tiny or they can be huge but we take something from them every single time.

Learning from 'failure' is important because:

• You learn to think outside the box.  When things don't go as planned, you have to go back to square one and take a different route.

• You find out who's got your back.  There's people in your life who will have your back no matter what goes wrong for you.  They'll be the ones who can help put you back on your feet and tell you to keep trying and never give up.

• You learn to listen to your gut instinct.  I knew deep down that the BTEC course wasn't for me but I enrolled because I didn't know what else to do at the time.  The more mistakes you make, the better you become at listening to your gut instinct.

• You become more resilient.  It goes without saying that your resilience develops in line with your failures and it becomes easier to pick yourself up and move on.

• You learn what you need to improve for next time.  It may be the smallest of fails or mistakes but you still learn something.  Apply this theory with everything and you'll make huge improvements.  I once left my trainers outside overnight, the next day when I came to put them on there was a crunch and a squelch - snail!!  Point in case - I never did that again!  Sounds a ridiculous example I know but it was definitely a lesson learnt.

So when something goes wrong over the course of next week, instead of beating yourself up about it, have a think about what you've learnt from it.  I find it really helpful to write things down, for example, when I'm training for a marathon I write down every minute detail of what I've worn, to what I've eaten, time of day, how fast, how far, how I'm feeling etc.  From there, it's very easy to identify trends and where things are going wrong.

Remember:

#2021