The Greatness Zone’s Jay Forte says how we process failure determines our success.
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For some reason, we think we have all the answers. Okay, for some reason I think I have all the answers—that I should know what it takes to be successful, happy and living all the right way. But in a world that always changes, how could any of us have all the answers?
I think we need to advocate for a healthier perspective about success, significance, and life’s events. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don’t. As we fixate on what doesn’t work or go as planned (get upset about them), we miss the importance of them—what they have to teach us.
As author, speaker and philosopher Tom Morris says in his book, The Art of Achievement, “Expect disappointment. And prepare to dismiss it.” What he means is that we should dismiss the stuck and negative energy around the disappointment. What is more important is to learn from the event and not to get stuck in the negative feelings about the event. If we spend all of our energy feeling bad, dejected, or disappointed, we leave no room to learn from the event, get back on our feet and keep moving forward.
When we acknowledge that what we wanted didn’t happen or it didn’t go our way, we get introduced to a teachable moment—a place to learn something about our world and ourselves.
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Though sometimes access to our greatness may come in the ability to excel at something, it also could come through our response to hardship. We connect in to our inner greatness when we are challenged, tested and meet with failures. When we acknowledge that what we wanted didn’t happen or it didn’t go our way, we get introduced to a teachable moment—a place to learn something about our world and ourselves. If we can be present enough to both learn and remember the lesson, we can create a wiser, smarter and more resilient us for the next moment.
I regularly hear from audience members how they are still dealing with a personal or business failure—after many years. They are stuck in the emotions or embarrassment of not succeeding—of failing or of being disappointed. We can fail at something without feeling like a failure.
We can fail at something without feeling like a failure.
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Without all of the emotional anguish, we are better able to see failures as just another life event. Life sends what it sends—how we respond is up to us. We can fail, acknowledge the failure, learn from it, and move on to be wiser and more capable, or we can be frozen by it, never letting ourselves get over it and move on.
The guidance from Pythagoras (Greek philosopher and mathematician) is:
“Do not go to bed until you have gone over the day three times in your mind. What wrong did I do? What good did I accomplish? What did I forget to do?”
The information you gather from life in this moment prepares you to be show up bigger, bolder, and better in the next moment.
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Developing a habit to deal with life on life’s terms is a critical way to access and live your greatness. You work with life, not against it. You use what it sends you to constantly learn, grow and develop your stamina, courage and abilities. The information you gather from life in this moment prepares you to be show up bigger, bolder, and better in the next moment.
Consider building a nighttime habit of reviewing and learning from your day. Don’t dwell on what didn’t work right—instead, ask, “What did I learn today and how can I use it to be better tomorrow?” And as Tom Morris shares, “It doesn’t matter so much what happens to us as how we think about what happens to us. If we use the bad as well as the good, we can often turn the bad into good.” Very wise.
Originally published on LinkedIn.
Photo—Jacob Bøtter/Flickr