Sometimes people are comfortable with failure in some areas of their lives but
not others. A person may be used to failing to close the deal as a salesperson but
may be very upset if she fails to become elected to city council.
Identify the
areas in your life where you may be more apt to give up after failure and focus
on how you can learn from all the failures you experience. If you’re not used to
trying
again after you fail, facing your fears head-on can be difficult at first.
You’re likely to feel a range of emotions and your thoughts may discourage you
from trying again. With practice, however, you’ll be
able to discover how failure
can be an important step in becoming successful.
WHAT’S HELPFUL
Viewing failure as a learning opportunity
Resolving to try again if your first attempt was not successful
Facing
your fear of failure
Developing a new plan to increase your chance of success
Identifying and replacing irrational thoughts about failure
Focusing on improving your skills
rather than showing them off
WHAT’S NOT HELPFUL
Allowing failure to stop you from reaching your goals
Considering future attempts to be a lost
cause if your first attempt
wasn’t successful
Quitting because you don’t want to tolerate discomfort
Defining a task as impossible because it didn’t
work the first time
