Have you ever failed in business? Or at least in some aspect of running your business? If not, you are in the minority! And in fact, you may actually be at a disadvantage to those of us who have had degrees of failure.
Why would failure be an advantage? The primary reason is that you learn much more from your mistakes than from your successes. In the process of pushing boundaries and being brave, you’ve learnt what NOT to do and how to do it better next time.
That’s not to say that you should seek out ways to fail! But you should use it to your advantage, and here’s how you can:
- Don’t blame others when you fail. Take ownership and work through the mistakes so you can learn from them.
- Take the good from the bad. There is always something good to be found, so incorporate those good things (e.g. change your policies to reflect the experience)
- Learn from your mistakes. Study what happened. Get smarter because of them.
- Don’t listen to doubters. People around will see when something hasn’t ‘worked’ and tell you to give up – but if you believe in what you’re doing, keep at it!
A classic example of ‘failures’ is John Grisham, whose first novel was rejected by twenty-eight publishers and agents. Of course we know he persisted because he is now one of the world’s most famous novelists.
Are you prepared to fail and keep persisting? The best entrepreneurs all do – and we have to learn to do the same: keep moving and stay focused on our long term goals.
