How To Learn From Failure

Four ways to find value in failure.

Failing at something important can feel awful. And while it’s sometimes hard
to keep from slipping into a negative headspace when it happens, it’s key to
remember how valuable that failure can be if you let it. You have a choice
about how to respond to it.

To change our thinking around failure, Aaron Walsh, a mental performance
coach and former elite rugby player, recommends looking at your mindset as
skill. “If you see it as a personality trait, then it’s very fixed. Oh well, I’ve just inherited what I've inherited. So the ironic thing would be saying could we have
a growth mindset towards our mindset?” he says.

Here’s are four ways to grow your mindset by find learning in failure:

Failing helps us learn to cope with adversity.
Experiencing failure helps you build the resilience that will serve you during
challenging situations in the future. “I used to think that you couldn't have
mistakes. Everything had to be perfect,” says Scott Hann, MBE, an artistic
gymnastics coach who’s led teams to Olympic games. “I had to be the one
with all the answers, all of the suggestions. If someone knew something better
than me, oh god, it was a personal insult. Now I'm completely the opposite, the
flip side. Now I encourage safe environments for people to fail because there
is no better way to learn than to fail.”

Failing teaches us valuable life lessons. If you give yourself a chance to
reflect on it honestly, every setback has something to teach.

Bennie Fowler, a former NFL player and Super Bowl contender who now works
in leadership coaching, talks about learning from failure through the
experience of being cut from a professional team in Chicago. ”I was living and
playing in the city that my mom was living in, so it seemed like everything was
aligned. I didn’t go to that training camp with the same mindset and mentality
that I had had to get into the NFL and at the end of that training camp, I got
cut. I got released,” he says.

“That was one of the toughest moments of my career. That was really tough
on me,” he says. “But there were so many learning experiences from that and if i think about all the things that came from that … failure teaches us so many
different things. It taught me that in the NFL — in life — you have to be
consistent every single day. The best players, regardless of what sport they
play, are the most consistent people.”

Failure builds problem-solving skills. And those, in turn, build our confidence for future challenges. Harness this by reflecting on instances when past
failures gave you insights that led to successes.

Failing gives us new perspectives on success. Failure often leaves us with a
better understanding of what it takes to achieve the goal we’re after. And
through failure, we get a better sense of our own strengths and weaknesses –
and where we can grow.

Reflecting on being cut from the Chicago training camp, Fowler said, “I had let
some of the success get to my head and I experienced some failure but it got
me back on track. And I think sometimes life puts us on the sidelines to give
us a different perspective. It did so many things for my mindset and who I am
as a person today. So I wish it didn't happen, but as I said, I appreciate it so
much.”

Failure is an inevitable part of life, but it doesn’t have to define you or your
onward journey. By finding positive learning, you can use setbacks for the
personal growth that sets you up for future success.