By Neil Phillips.

I love it when my coaching clients fail.  Not because they fail; I’m not that cruel.  I love when my clients fail because of what they gain along the way.

Usually when we say “it was a great learning experience” we get a feeling that is right up there with kissing your dog.  It just isn’t significant. And in light of the disastrous failure, any other roundabout way to claim victory seems a bit shallow.

Over time, however, your ability to understand and learn from your failures is an important one. Here are four significant things to learn about failure.

First, if you aren’t failing, you aren’t stretching.  You are mailing it in.  When you reach, you risk failing. Putting it on the line and risking defeat is what makes winning so, so sweet! You deserve the taste that fruit of success.

Second, you learn to savor success. The smoother the success, the less you care about it. There is an old saying that “leaders do the things that followers don’t.”  That’s the definition of success.  That’s why leader’s carry their success abilities with them.  They value the wins.

Third, you learn from your past mistakes.  You are not doomed to repeat the failure. There has been some significant research using fMRI’s that when you learn from negative situations, you literally create new neural pathways.  Reframing losses as learning opportunities allow you to be optimistic about the future. Ask the question, “What else can this mean?”  You don’t need to ignore the failure, but the meaning of this situation contains more than one statement about failure.

Fourth, you learn that failure is not the end of the world. You learn a perspective that gives the right amount of importance to failure.  You learn that there is no shame in failure; only in repeating it.  You free yourself to try new things until you get it right.

You own your successes.  You also own your failures.  You deserve the opportunity to losses into wins.

Who Coaches You?

A lot of things can make you doubt your leadership skills:

  • How Sure Are You of What Matters?
  • How Convinced Are You That You Have the Right Plan?
  • Who’s Holding You Accountable?

Every leader learns they can’t do it alone.  You need a spark to set your goals, an ear to listen, and resources that you can use.  At Team Connections Pro, you’ll find all three.  You can join our Facebook group and see what other leaders are doing.  You can access well over 100 hours of video and audio, as well as training documents and eBooks.  And you can have a professional coach to support you along the way.

Team Connections Pro is always on your side.  We’re the partner that you want and need. Don’t you think you should look at what other top leaders say?