Most failures are symptoms that you need to make some kind of change. Although it’s tempting to see yourself as the victim of bad luck, you’ll be better off if you figure out whether you’re contributing to your own misfortunes.
Have you ever noticed, for example, that while you always end up on the short end of fate, there are others who always seem to end up on the right side of it? Probably, it’s no accident. Find me a person who always seems to be in the “right place at the right time,” and I’ll show you someone who knows how to recognize and convert opportunities to his or her own advantage.
Blaming your bad luck on someone else is worse yet. It moves the locus of control “out there” where you can’t do anything to make it better. What you really need to do is buckle down and figure out how to gain more control.
When you catch yourself falling into the blaming trap, a neon STOP sign should go on in your head. Instead of falling into “poor-me, rotten-you” thinking, ask yourself how you can turn your defeat into a more positive experience. Perhaps you’ve been unfairly treated. Can you think of ways you could have handled the situation differently?
Honestly, were you the stellar, outstanding citizen and employee you’re now claiming to be? Did a competitor beat you, perhaps, because he actually had better skills or better connections?
Sometimes we lose out on things we really want because someone knew someone who knew someone who helped your rival gain the inside advantage. You can call it “rotten luck,” or you can identify it as a need for better networking or more marketable job skills.
It helps if you can find some humor in your situation. Although he had every right to cry “poor me” a hundred times over, actor George Lopez chose to transform his traumatic childhood experiences into a television laugh track. In the process, he learned the power of self-discovery, resilience, and forgiveness. Although he is the creator and main character in a successful sitcom, his successful ratings are based on the painful reality of a failed childhood from which he is still recov-ering.
Regardless of the shape and form they take, failures can—and often do—feel like the end of the world. Most failures, however, are tempo-rary setbacks rather than career enders. The key is to be able to over-come the blow to your ego, which almost always occurs, so that you can learn the lessons failure can teach. Invariably, one of these lessons involves humility. No matter how high you climb, you’ll always make mistakes. Owning up to those mistakes is part of the process of career growth.
Dr. Spock’s Change of Heart
The name “Dr. Spock” was a household word to most baby boomers’
parents, who religiously followed his recommendations when rearing their children. Because of his widespread success, Benjamin Spock
never anticipated the criticism he’d receive a generation later at the hands of feminists who vehemently disagreed with his advice. After these attacks, Dr. Spock retreated into emotional isolation to deter-mine what had happened. At first he simply nursed his wounds. Once he got past the hurt, though, he began to see his critics’ point. He adapted his viewpoint publicly and acknowledged that fathers were equally capable of good child-rearing practices. It was a sign of Dr.
Spock’s wisdom and strength that he was eventually able to hear the criticism and respond to it appropriately. Otherwise, he would have quickly become an anachronism, a man who could not respond to the call of new times.
Criticisms can be painful but important learning experiences.
Sometimes, as in Spock’s case, they’re well justified. Other times, they’re mostly professional jealousy, someone else’s sour grapes. In either case, you must learn to find the kernel of truth in what others say about you. More important, you must learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Know what those nagging self-doubts you carry in your head really mean lest you turn them into self-fulfilling prophecy.
Setbacks can show you what not to do again and teach you how to cope with—and grow—from failure. Although you might never embrace failure wholeheartedly, you might find some truth in the cliché that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Having sur-vived your losses, you might discover a newfound power within your-self.
According to Mary Lynn Pulley, the author of Losing Your Job—
Reclaiming Your Soul, “Probably the most important thing that peo-ple can do to avoid feeling like a victim is to not dwell on why some-thing happened…but instead move forward with a sense of hope and imagination toward their future.”
It’s a Wonderful Life
We all know the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It is a Christmas clas-sic that is etched into our collective psyche. This film is a story about
a man named George Bailey. Although he’s a good, honest man always struggling to do the right thing, Bailey questions his life and the choices he’s made. Teetering on the brink of despair, he finally con-cludes that his life has been a failure. Surmising that it might have been better if he had never been born, he contemplates suicide.
Thanks to the efforts of a novice angel (determined to get his wings), Bailey discovers that he was not a failure at all—that he did fit into the scheme of life and contributed much to the happiness of other people.
The story behind the story is equally compelling. The original screen-play for this movie grew out of a short story written by Philip Van Doren that, ironically, no one wanted and never got published in that form. Instead, Van Doren published his story as a Christmas card. But director Frank Capra recognized its potential and, in 1946, produced the movie that would become his magnum opus.
Although the movie wasn’t initially a commercial disaster, neither was it a commercial success. Despite opening to generally positive reviews, it lost money on its initial release. Time turned out to be its greatest ally. Capra believes that it’s because “there’s a little George Bailey in all of us.” Perhaps it’s a message we need to hear again and again.
That’s why, at least once every year, we thank Jimmy Stewart (and Frank Capra) for reminding us that even if we haven’t achieved all of our career and financial goals, there are myriad ways to measure suc-cess and still feel good about our lives.
Fail(ure) Is Not a Four-Letter Word Thought-Starter Worksheet
1. What is your experience with failure so far?
2. Are you afraid to fail?
3. Does a fear of failure ever prevent you from trying new things?
4. If you weren’t afraid of failing, what would you do (or try to do)?
5. When you were growing up, how did your parents handle your mistakes?
6. As a youngster, were you overly critical of your own mistakes?
If yes, do you know why?
7. Do you have a low opinion of your own abilities?
(continues) 8. Do you suffer from low self-esteem?
9. Describe your biggest career failure.
10. How did it make you feel to fail?
11. Do you know why the failure occurred?
12. Is there anything you could have done to prevent yourself from failing?
13. Do you consider yourself a perfectionist?
14. Do you know the difference between a small mistake and a big one?
(continued)
15. Do you have a tendency to take yourself too seriously?
16. Can you think of a time in your life when you learned some-thing important from failure that prevented you from making a similar mistake again?
17. Of all the examples cited in this chapter, whom did you identi-fy with the most? Why?
18. Of all the examples cited in this chapter, whom did you admire the most? Is there anything you can do to be more like that person?
19. If you’re overly fearful of failure, have difficulty accepting your own mistakes, and/or have trouble recovering from career set-backs, have you considered working with a professional thera-pist to strengthen your resiliency? Why or why not?