Failing forward

- Failure doesn't have to be painful, and it doesn't have to negatively impact performance. In fact, failure is often a key component of success. I'm Gemma Leigh Roberts, a business psychologist and author. And I'm going to share ways that you can create a mindset that embraces failure as a learning tool. In our professional lives, we are guaranteed to experience at least a few failures along the way. We need to learn to harness failure and use it to our advantage instead of letting it hold us back. In order to really accept and celebrate failure, you need to develop cognitive flexibility, which is all about reframing difficult situations, thoughts, and emotions to view them as a rich part of life and work. Here are three ways that you can embrace failure. One, create a failure wall. Document all your efforts that haven't created the results you wanted to achieve. Seeing a visual representation of how many failures it takes to create success will help you to view mistakes and challenges as part of the process of eventually creating successful outcomes, rather than viewing failure as something that just gets in the way of success. Two, change the win-or-lose language. Rather than focusing on winning or creating a positive outcome, shift your thinking to celebrate the process of getting to where you are. Celebrate the efforts, energy, motivation, creativity, and resourcefulness that you have demonstrated, regardless of whether you achieved a result. If you can learn to value the process rather than just the outcome, you can take positives from the situation, even when you don't achieve what you set out to. Three, share your failures in real time. Sometimes when you look back, you can appreciate how failing helps you to learn something and eventually supported you on your career journey. If you can share your experiences at the time with those that you trust, you'll be able to build a support system around you. Sharing your stories will also help others as you can help to reduce the feelings of embarrassment or shame that they might feel when they make mistakes. It's really important to celebrate the failures that show that you took a leap. Failing forward isn't about toxic positivity and pretending to feel great about a challenging situation or a bitter disappointment. This can actually be psychologically damaging over time. You can, however, acknowledge and accept painful feelings that you experience with failure and find ways to keep moving forward at the same time.