5 Steps to Managing 'Failures' in Business - and Elsewhere Too

What the partners of Morgan Gleave Art & Design have learnt in eleven years of running a small business. 

1) Do not avoid trying just to avoid failure

 “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed."

Theodore Roosevelt

2) Accept that everyone fails sometimes  

This does not mean that you should go round expecting to fail all the time – that would be counterproductive.  

It means accept that failing is part of life so that when it happens, it does not come as an earth shattering shock.

You will meet other entrepreneurs who appear to be perfect in every way.  It is easy to assume that you are the only one with difficulties. 

It is not true.  The rest are hiding failures behind their professional personas. 

You need to do the same because to openly dwell on your difficulties will reduce your potential customers’ confidence in your business.

(The butterfly has nothing to do with the article - it is just pretty and cheerful.)

3) Learn from your failures  

Work out what went wrong so that you can avoid the same thing happening again.   

4) Own your failure  

If you contributed to the failure, do not make excuses or blame someone else. 

Similarly, do not be too hard on yourself. 

If your failure affects someone else then take genuine responsibility for it.  Apologise, and make amends if you can. 

5) Forgive yourself and move on

Once you have worked out what went wrong, learnt from it and done all you can to make amends, it is time to forgive yourself and move on.

Forgiving yourself is not easy but worth the effort.  

Sometimes it is just a case of reminding yourself that you are humans and not infallible or that sometimes things just happen because we cannot control everything.

‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’

Winston Churchill

6)  What to do when failure makes you feel miserable

  

Sometimes, when something major does go wrong, you have to let yourself be upset before you can regroup and start learning from the event.

Click on AUseful Little Trick for Managing ‘Bad’ Feelings for a surprisingly effective technique for managing your less welcome feelings.

The more you fail, the easier it gets to accept failure and move on.

Post Script

The death of the wonderful David Bowie has been announced today.  So sad.  Such a loss.

Reading David Bowie's obituary on the BBC’s website it is clear that even David Bowie had his fair share of failures but he still kept bouncing back and trying different things.  

If David Bowie cannot inspire you not to give into life's setbacks, then I doubt that anyone can. 

David Bowie, RIP

Have you any inspiring stories about how you have turned a failure into a positive learning experience?  This can be in business or elsewhere.

Comments about David Bowie are welcome too.