Remove the Word 'Failure' from Your Vocabulary
As a consequence of being an Agile coach for so many years, I simply don’t comprehend the word failure anymore. It’s so ingrained in my mind that life is about continuous improvement and learning from situations that don’t turn out the way we wanted, that I don’t even understand it anymore when people use the word failure. Why is that? It’s because our words are powerful and the language we use reflects the way we think and after coaching so many people about always learning and growing the idea that there is no such thing as failure has really sunk into my mindset.
Yes, there are times when you set a goal with a time constraint and don’t achieve it, but the question then becomes: was there a negative consequence of not achieving your goal on time? If there wasn’t, then maybe the time constraint was artificial or arbitrary and didn’t mean that much in the first place. If that’s the case, you have a longer timeline to keep working towards your goal and achieve it.
In the case that not reaching a goal by a certain time means you can no longer achieve it, that’s when you have to be creative and think about what the purpose of your goal was, what objective you were trying to accomplish and if it’s still possible to achieve the same objective with a different timeline. Here’s an example: Let’s say you were aiming to get a certain software feature done by your company’s large annual customer conference and it didn’t get done. While it may be true it wasn’t completed in time for the conference, if your objective was to highlight an amazing new software feature to customers and potential customers to sell more products, you could find other avenues to do that. If you get stuck in the mindset of ‘failure’ of the goal, you lose the ability to think creatively to solve the original problem.
In this scenario, here are some questions to ask:
When is it possible to release this feature?
Even if it’s not ready for the conference, is it possible to demonstrate this feature to customers while letting them know it will be released in the next few months?
What other avenues are available to showcase this feature to sell more product?
Can you showcase the feature to customers at another upcoming event?
By expanding the possibilities in the situation, you can turn it around and use it to create a different scenario albeit different from what you originally planned.
This idea can be applied to numerous situations from your personal and your professional life, all it takes is a little creative thinking and stepping back from a situation to look at it objectively. When you get out of the mindset that you ‘failed’ at something you can continue on the path to achieve it.
Completely changing the way you think about goals, achievement, success and failure might not happen overnight but here are some tips to start changing your mindset around ‘failure’:
Keep Challenging Yourself to See Things Differently
When you first start getting out of the ‘failure’ mindset it can get really uncomfortable. So many people have been programmed to believe in a black and white model of success and failure that anything else doesn’t feel true. It takes time to make a new reality the truth so don’t give up. Consistent practice over time is what changes a habit so keep working on it. Start small and change your ‘failure’ mindset around something that is the easiest to let go of and continue from there. The first step when you feel like you have failed is to step back and ask yourself if it’s really ‘failure’ or simply something to learn from, do better next time and continue working toward. Also, making mistakes is normal and natural so don’t allow one mistake to define something as a ‘failure’.
Have Compassion for Yourself
Part of the failure mentality comes from an incessant drive towards perfection. While setting and achieving goals is noble, it’s ok to slow down and cut yourself a break from time to time. We are all human and it’s ok when things don’t go as planned from time to time. Give yourself the same grace you would give anyone else. Also, sometimes people categorize a part of their life as a failure if things don’t happen by a certain age or on a certain timeline or in a certain way. If that is happening to you, ask yourself who created that narrative and if it’s something you really believe.
Be Curious
The more you can stay curious and avoid judgement of a situation, the more you can learn from it. Ask yourself what you learned from an unpleasant situation and what you want to do better next time. By seeing something as a learning experience, instead of a success or a failure you take your power back and use it to better yourself. No situation is wasted if you improve from it and become a better version of yourself.
Don’t Give Up
The worst part of the word ‘failure’ is when I see people give up on their goals because they haven’t achieved them yet. Don’t let setbacks and not achieving a goal by a certain timeline stop you from continuing on your path. Learn from things not going according to your plan and decide how you want to move forward. A large part of success is about consistency so keep working towards your goals. One disappointment shouldn’t be the thing that stops you from getting where you want to go.
Goal setting and achieving success is all about holding yourself accountable to what you want while also having patience with the things you can’t control. Instead of thinking of things not going according to plan as ‘failure’ get yourself into a growth mindset that takes every situation and turns it into an opportunity.