What I Do When I Fail

In What to Do When You Fail from Cool Cat Teacher Blog, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher shares,

“When you lose, you only have one option. Take the challenge and change. Get up and move forward so you can win. Falling down doesn’t have to be your permanent position if you get up and keep running. Getting told “no” is just one more “no” that you have behind you as you move to “yes!”

This reminds me that someone once said (I can’t remember who so if you know, feel free to let me know) that failure is not an important thing. It is what you do after you fail that is the most important thing.

When I fail at something, my first reaction is to quit. I’m hurt and I’m discouraged and I don’t want to face up to my failure.

Once I lick my wounds and calm down, I start analyzing my failure. What caused the failure? What did I do wrong? What obstacles stood in my way?

Then I start thinking about what I could have done differently? How could I have overcome those obstacles?

When I have all these thoughts asked and answered, many times I feel energized and can’t wait to try to face the challenge again. I am determined that I will overcome this failure. I put the hurt and disappointment behind me and then I charge on ahead.

I fight the tiny words in the back of my mind saying that I will fail again or that I won’t be able to overcome the obstacles. I remind myself that not trying is worse than failing. What is the worst that can happen? I fail again and then look for another way to succeed.

A friend of mine used to coach basketball at the high school and I asked him if he got upset when his boys didn’t make a basket. He told me he got more upset if they didn’t try because you can’t make any points if you don’t try to make a basket. Just holding on the ball, passing, and dribbling the ball won’t win the game. I try to remember this when I want to keep thinking about trying and not really making the attempt.

What do you do when you fail at something? Please share.

Image: 'Tension (lock screen)' 
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