How do you push through failure to find success?

Question: I just failed at something very important to me. How do I best go forward from here?

Pat’s Take

This is an excellent question, and one that deserves a thoughtful answer. I hope that Susan and I can effectively deliver on that.

Failure hurts. When you fail at something you care deeply about, it hurts even worse. As an aspiring young professional, it is critical that you get out of your comfort zone and attempt to pursue competitive opportunities like going after a new internship/job, attempting to join a selective organization, running for office in an organization, or maybe even attempting to start a new company. The great news here is that in attempting these things, you are putting yourself in a situation where you can learn and grow in dramatic fashion. The bad news is that it is inherent that you will sometimes fail when you do so.

I would suggest the following four step approach to attempt to manage failures in college.

1. Allow yourself to be disappointed. Failure can be tremendously challenging to people. Candidly, nobody likes to lose. If you do, allow yourself to be disappointed for a period of time. If you have invested in pursuit of the opportunity, it is very fair to be let down by a loss. It’s perfectly nature to “mourn” a loss, so don’t beat yourself up for being sad.

2. Do some self-analysis. After you lose, it is of great importance to step back and attempt to understand why you lost. Was the quality of your effort what it needed to be? Was the time you put into the effort in adequate? Did you have the necessary skill sets to put yourself in a position to win? Was your experience and track record a help or hindrance? You may also want to get outside input on this from mentors and people you trust. My goal here is to help you better understand how you might improve the quality and quantity of your effort next time you take on a challenge. You must also understand that in some cases, you can do everything right and still lose. Sports is a great example of this, as the better team will typically win – but does not always win. If fact, sometimes you do not get the desired result due to an unlucky “break” in a competition. Or, in some cases, a competitor can give a “once-in-a-lifetime” performance, so even though you have fought hard and well, you still don’t win. Understand why you failed, if possible, and learn from it if there is anything to be learned.

3. Pick yourself up off the ground. Success in life is typically not defined by how many times you fail, but how you respond after those failures. Said another way, will you let the failure define you, or will you draw strength from it attempt to come back stronger and better than ever? Success is a mentality. Nobody wins 100% of the time. The ability to dust yourself off and go forward with your head held high is critical to success in your career (and life). It is not easy to do. In fact, it’s quite difficult – and it may not feel like the right thing to do at the time, but after a short period of time, it’s almost the right thing to do.

4. Take on a new challenge. As much as that hurts to hear after a failure, pursuing a new opportunity is often the best way to move ahead in your life. It could be something very similar to your first challenge – or it may be very different. Success is about looking forward — fully leveraging the learnings from the loss — and pursuing a new goal. Use the past failure as a source of motivation and positive energy. Don’t let it be an anchor weighing you down. Take on a “winnable” challenge – one that you have the skills and time with which to compete effectively. Then pour your heart and soul into it and work hard for a win. If you win, congratulations. If you don’t, go back to step one and try again. You’ll get somewhere great if you keep trying. It will be much tougher to do so if you quit trying because you have failed.

Pat’s Bottom Line: Failure is no fun – at all. I do not wish it upon anyone. That said, it is a very real part of life – for everyone. One of my most successful friends once told me that her dad’s best advice to her was to “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Keep pressing forward and working incredibly hard. Keep putting yourself in challenging situations (and risking failure), and you’ll find success in more ways than you can imagine.

Susan’s Take

Middle school volleyball team, high school glee club, and college sorority President – three things I went after and did not get. The fact that I can still remember these things MANY years later is proof that failure sticks with you. Everyone fails. The difference between success and failure is your willingness to try again. Need some proof? Here’s a list of amazingly famous people who did not let failure stop them.

Walt Disney: He was fired by a newspaper editor because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

Oprah Winfrey: Oprah was fired from her job as a television reporter because she was “unfit for tv.”

Harrison Ford: In his first film, Ford was told by the movie execs that he simply didn’t have what it takes to be a star.

Theodor Seuss Giesel: Dr. Suess’s first book was rejected by 27 different publishers.

Elvis Presley: Manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after just one performance telling him, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Michael Jordan: Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He has stated, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Life is like a hockey game. Most of us spend way too much time crafting the one perfect shot on goal, and then are devastated when the shot does not go in. My advice? Take more shots of goal. Take messy shots on goal. Take shots on goal that you know are a long-shot. By doing this you’ll expect failure part of the time, and the missed shots won’t feel as disappointing. The person who takes the most shots on goal is usually the winner in the end.

Susan’s Bottom Line: Failure is not something any of us willingly ask for, but failure is part of life. Learning to move ahead and not let failure stop you from going after your goals is the very best advice that successful people can give you.

Are you transitioning from college to career or working in your first job after graduation? If so, we’d love to answer any question you may have related to career success. Send your first name, school, and/or employer to AskPatandSusan@gmail.com and we’ll try to address your question in a future article.