Stop glorifying failure until we know how to coach recovery.
Fail fast. Fail forward. Failure isn't fatal. Pick your cliche. There's a lot of chatter about "failure." But rarely do you hear about what's on the other side of failure. It's hinted around that after failure that there's this linear trajectory to success. Wrong.
I'm not talking about the kind of failure where you try something new and don't quite get it. The failure I'm talking about is like being on a horse and getting thrown down to the ground. Hard.
My wife is a runner. Marathons, half marathons, 10Ks. She's the kind of runner that in the middle of January, it's 15 degrees outside and she laces up for a "quick 8 miles" while everyone else is watching TV or sitting by the fire. This year hasn't been easy for her. Multiple injuries, losing her mother...it's been hard to stay on top of her training. One injury was a broken toe. She was off of running for 6 weeks. You lose a good chunk of your cardio endurance in that time frame. She had to essentially start over. But each morning that she's scheduled to run...she laces up. She may come back a little frustrated that she had to run/walk or couldn't go as far as she wanted...she still laces up.
Several years ago, while playing volleyball, I had a significant injury to a finger that required two screws and months of occupational therapy. The surgeon wasn't sure I'd be able to hold a cup of water, let alone play volleyball again. Once I was cleared to play, I stepped onto the court...the ball came flying to me...and I walked right off of the court and went home.
There's an incredible amount of fortitude and will power required to lace up after these kinds of setbacks and failures. When you look at where you were and realize how hard it was to get there...and it's all gone. And you realize you have to start over and go through all of it again, just to get back to even. It's crushing.
In our careers, these kinds of failures aren't things like flubbing up during a sales call or being a few minutes late to an appointment. It's losing your job. It's the company you worked for declaring bankruptcy. The other side of failure that isn't talked about is the ego that gets broken; the fear that was never there before now being a constant companion. Wondering to yourself "what's the point?"
Today, we almost glorify failure, but we aren't enabling people with how to deal with the other side of failure. Failure is personal. It's bitter. It impacts our self-worth, our confidence and utterly deflates our will power. To encourage this kind of failure without equipping people with how to deal with the other side is reckless.
When you find yourself on the other side of failure, the first thing you have to do is realize and accept that there is no straight path to success. Recognize that your first priority after a failure or setback is you.
Failure is an injury! And we have to treat it the same way we would a broken toe or surgically repaired finger. We have to rest. Recover. Rehabilitate. And we have to appreciate that it's going to take awhile to get back to where we were. Recovering from failure is a grieving process but society wants us to skip all of the ugly parts in the middle. You won't recover that way. You won't be ready for your next set of challenges.
Oh, by the way, following the example of my wife, I finally laced up and got back onto the volleyball court.
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