Finding the Fun in Failure
Finding the Fun in Failure
Failure is inevitable - almost as inevitable as change. How we handle failure can be a tool for achieving more as an individual and as a team. It's important to not only become comfortable with failure, but to also consider how powerful it could be if we actually learned how to have fun with it!
Hear me out.
The more we enjoy anything, the more we're likely to learn more about it and allow it to inform our actions in positive ways. As the book "Fail Fast, Fail Often" describes, "happy and successful people tend to spend less time planning and more time acting than average people. They get out into the world, try new things, make mistakes and fail at first and in doing so, they lay the foundation for future successes."
Did you catch that? Making failures work for you is an essential part of success.
Before you can find fun in failure, we should establish the difference between "having" a failure and "being" a failure. Failures don't define us - they guide us like traffic signs that advise us how to best navigate the roads. Failures, when viewed through a positive and forward-looking lens, show us what we're doing wrong so we get closer to being right. No matter what task you may experience failure with, you are absolutely still a successful human. A successful friend. Family Member. Mentor. Learner. Support System. Customer. Armchair detective, maybe? At a bare minimum, you’re a success at having tried.
Once you become comfortable with the fact that you can fail often without being a failure, you open endless doors for you to start enjoying the experience.
Here are 4 ways you can find fun in failure:
1. Find the Lesson
Let failure teach you; don't let it distract you from the end goal. Rather, use your failures to put some laser focus on the element of the failure that you believe caused the breakdown. What exactly went wrong, and what aspects of that do you have control over? Start there and see where the thought process takes you.
Successful people get good at things because they power through being wrong or doing something imperfectly in order to find the right - nay - THEIR right way of getting better at whatever they choose.
This article from the Harvard Business Review has some great information on how to analyze and leverage your failures toward your success.
2. Find the Connections
Let failure help you be vulnerable and connect with people. Sharing experiences that felt like failure can make you relatable, and it can make others feel more comfortable openly sharing more experiences and their own mistakes with you.
If you're sensing a lack of trust on your team, try opening up about struggles you've had or are having. Allowing yourself to be honest about your weak spots, blind spots, and mistakes is one of the recommendations Patrick Lencioni provides in his classic book "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team."
According to this recent blog post from Grand Canyon University, "By being vulnerable, the leader creates a space where followers see that the leader is willing to admit failure while pressing forward to overcome adversity, which, over time, builds trusting relationships."
3. Find the Perspective
Let failure help you reconsider the way you work toward your goal or reconsider how important that goal was, or how crucial it was to achieve it in that way or within a certain time frame.
Sometimes our desire for something can inflate our sense of how important it really is in the grand scheme of things. Think about all of the “failures” and misfortunes you’ve weathered to get to this moment, where you’re reading about how you can use that experience to grow. You did it! Now keep going.
This Forbes interview provides a great example of keeping perspective throughout failure to achieve success.
4. Find the Humor
Let your failures help you laugh. Focus on this with your own failures... don't be out there roasting people for things that didn't go well for them.
However, being able to laugh about your own failures, even certain aspects of them, shows an ability to turn negative experiences into positive reflections.
Check out this Forbes article for more tips on how learning to laugh in the face of failure can be a strong leadership trait.
No matter how you do it, don’t let your failures make you feel like one. Take a close look at the experience, your role in it, and how the experience can make you a better leader and team mate.
Looking for ways to find the fun in your work, whether successful or less-so? Contact Gordeaux Consulting today for customized training that will help your team use past failures toward your success!