None of us like to fail, and it is natural to be upset and disappointed when it happens. This is true in both our personal and business lives, and our business failures can often be very public which makes the whole experience worse.
So where should we look when failure does visit us? In my mind the answer to this is simple, in the mirror! I think an important part of dealing with failure is accepting ownership, not apportioning the blame anywhere but ourselves. We need to understand where we made the mistakes that led to the failure, and then remember the only true mistakes in life are those that you do not learn from.
Accepting this doctrine is to my mind vital in our business lives. Look at the great business leaders around us, and ask how many of them have achieved their success without any failures along the way? The answer will be none! The difference between them and those that fell along the way is that when failure happened, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and started again. But this time they had the added wisdom from the mistakes they had made, and the desire not to repeat them.
This is where the power of failure comes into play. Painful though the experience may be, positives cam be taken from it and used to improve your business going forward. This is what successful people do. They do not dwell on the past, or lose themselves in regret and self-pity, but use their experience to better their business and lives.
We are probably all our own fiercest critics, and we need to remember that failure is not an exclusive club, and its membership can have benefits.
