We are all familiar with the “F” word. It’s a dirty word, with a negative connotation. When we hear the “F” word, it evokes fear, sympathy and lots of questions.
FAILURE! It’s the “F” word that we give a lot of power over our lives and our emotions.
But why do we do that?
Failure is a part of life.
From business to personal accomplishments, we fail every day.
How we respond to failure is the key.
How you respond to failure, setbacks or the no’s in life...is a choice. Sometimes life feels like nothing can go right. One thing after another goes wrong, falls apart, doesn’t come to fruition...and you simply feel like a failure. Each and every one of us have been there; one, two and even three or more times. It’s the choice to be empowered by those failures and setbacks that creates success.
Running a micro of small business is hard. It’s harder than working for someone else. Gone are the forty-hour weeks, especially in the first five years. You hustle and work harder than you ever have.
But the joy comes in doing what you love. For Ensemble, the joy is making a difference in the businesses and the lives of the people who come through out door. Hundreds of people have come in and out of our space over the years. Some as members, others for classes, workshops or networking events. We approach each person we connect with the same way, with our mission at the forefront: growing businesses and investing in people through connections, collaboration and community.
Back to the “F” word. Failure is a stepping stone to success. It’s all in how you choose to respond to it. Each failure or small fail is a step on the ladder to growth and what you want to achieve. Let failure empower you to find another path, pivot your product or services, adapt to a new way of thinking and keep pushing on.
We are not encouraging you to work harder, but to let your failures empower you to work smarter. Learn from your mistakes. See the pitfalls as opportunities to improve and come out even stronger. Here are a few steps to empower you to grow through failure.
Create a failure board. You can actually write out all of your failures on a whiteboard that is visible to you at all times. It can be cathartic also. You can snap a photo of it and erase it or keep it face forward to remind you to keep pushing on. You may find that you haven’t failed as much as you thought you did. You can also do this in a journal if you prefer.
Write the lessons down. Writing out things releases them from your head and your heart. Our mind plays tricks on us, often telling us things that are incorrect. When you force yourself to write out what you learned from times of failure, it will flip the switch in your brain and allow you to be empowered by what you just learned instead of beaten down.
Talk it out & be humble. These two items are tied together because one must be humble to share and discuss one’s failures. It’s never easy to talk about mistakes that you made. Be humble. Stay humble. Humility keeps your feet planted on the ground. By talking about your failure with others, you will give positive power to what you’ve gone through. You will empower not only yourself but others on what you did wrong and what you did right.
Keep going. No matter the failure, you must keep going. Maybe the failure illuminated another passion or completely different path for you to take. Either way, you must keep going. Once you stop and do nothing, the getting started is really hard. Take in the failure. Process through it with the first three steps and then let it empower you to grow to the next step and then the next step.
The next time you get a big ‘ole “F” - embrace it. Share it. Let it be your friend and let it be what propels you to the next level in life and in business.
Remember these people who failed to success.
