A Simple Way to Deal With Failure

This week I screwed up at work.

It sort of blindsided me. I was doing my best. I can’t explain how it happened. It just did.

I began thinking about all the things I’ve read about doing excellent work and having integrity. The first question to pop into my mind after a few minutes of brewing is “Frank, do you really believe all that you’ve read and felt such zeal about?”

Then it dawned on me. I had spent little time worrying over it, really. I had quickly admitted I was wrong to myself and immediately began on finding solutions, the best one. I didn’t consider my self-image to be shattered because I’d made a mistake. I just dealt with it.

Here are three points for you to take from this and apply to your life when you fail.

Failure won’t change your identity, especially if you’re a Christian. Now, depending on the size of the failure it may lead you to redirect your life. But you’re still valuable and can make a contribution to the world. Someone somewhere will be glad to have you.

The best thing you can do is to quickly admit you’ve failed. When you do this, you are free to analyze the situation for what it is. Look at what is good and bad about it. In fact, there might still be ways for you to lessen the failure if you’ll just step back from your emotions and think it through.

Learn from it. Pain is an excellent teacher.  It allows your memory to have a more lasting impression of what happened. Use it to see a better way in the future. Besides, you’ll definitely know what not to do then.

You see, failure doesn’t have to be the end of your life. If you’ll just do these simple things, you’ll find you can go on living quickly and the world won’t miss out on what you have to offer.