read it write down everything you learn from it THEY DON’T GIVE UP AFTER THE FIRST FAILURE
Failure is part of the process of success. People who avoid failure also avoid success.
—ROBERT T. KIYOSAKI

Susan came to see me for counseling because she said she felt like her life wasn’t as fulfilling as she thought it should be. She was happily married and she and her husband had a beautiful two-year-old little girl. Susan had a stable job as a receptionist at the local school and she and her husband were doing just fine financially. Susan said she actually felt a little selfish for not feeling happier, because she knew she had a good life.

During the first couple of therapy sessions, Susan revealed that she had always wanted to be a teacher. After high school, she’d actually gone on to study education in college. Even though the university she had attended was only a few hours away from home, she was miserably homesick. She was painfully shy and she struggled to make new friends. She found the classes to be difficult and overwhelming. So, halfway through her first semester, Susan dropped out of college.

Shortly after returning home, she got the school receptionist job and she’d worked there ever since. Although it wasn’t her dream job, she thought it was as close to becoming a teacher as she’d ever get. But it was clear from talking to Susan that she still yearned to be a teacher. She just didn’t have the confidence that she could do it.

When I first broached the subject of going back to college, Susan insisted she was too old. But she changed her mind when I showed her a recent news headline about a woman who earned her high school diploma at the age of ninety-four. We spent the next few weeks talking about what held her back from studying education. She said that she had simply decided that she wasn’t “college material.” After all, she’d failed the first time and she felt certain she wasn’t smart enough to pass college classes now that she’d been out of school for so long.

Over the next few weeks, we discussed her thoughts about failure and whether it was true that if she failed once, she’d fail again. We discovered an obvious pattern in Susan’s life—whenever she wasn’t successful on her first attempt at anything, she gave up. When she didn’t make her high school basketball team, she quit playing sports. When she gained back the fifteen pounds she’d lost dieting, she quit trying to lose weight. The list went on as she discovered how her beliefs about failure influenced her choices.

In the meantime, I encouraged her to look around at college options, even if she never planned to go to school, because college has changed a lot in the last fifteen years. She was pleased to discover that there were many alternatives to being a full-time college student, and within a matter of weeks, she signed up to take some online college classes. She was thrilled to think that classes wouldn’t require much time away from her family and she could attend on a part-time basis.

Soon after she began taking classes, she announced that she felt like she’d found what was missing. Simply working toward a new professional goal seemed to be just the challenge she needed to help her feel fulfilled. She ended therapy shortly after with a new sense of hope about her future and a new outlook on failure.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED . . .

While some people are motivated by failure to do better the next time, other people simply give up. Do any of these points resonate with you?

    You worry about being perceived as a failure by other people.

    You only like to participate in things where you’re likely to excel.

    If your first attempt at something doesn’t work out well, you’re not likely to try again.

    You believe the most successful people were born with the natural talent to succeed.

    There are plenty of things that you don’t think you could ever learn to do, no matter how hard you try.

    Much of your self-worth is linked to your ability to succeed.

    The thought of failing feels very unsettling.

    You tend to make excuses for your failure.

    You would rather show off the skills you already have than try to learn new skills.

Failure doesn’t have to be the end. In fact, most successful people treat failure as just the beginning of a long journey to success.

WHY WE GIVE UP
Susan, like many of us, felt that if she failed once, she’d most certainly fail again, so she didn’t bother trying. Although she knew something was missing from her life, it never occurred to her that she could try taking college classes again because she assumed she just wasn’t “college material.” Susan is certainly not alone. It’s likely that almost everyone has given up on something after a failed first attempt.

Fear is often at the heart of our unwillingness to try something again after we’ve failed at it already, but not everyone shares the same fears about failure. One person may worry that he’ll disappoint his parents while another person may worry that she’s too fragile to handle another setback. Rather than facing these fears, many people simply avoid risking another failure, which we associate with shame. Some of us try to hide our failures; others devote a lot of energy into making excuses for them. A student may say, “I didn’t have time to study for this test at all,” even though she devoted many hours of her time preparing, just to cover up the fact that she did poorly. Another student may hide his test score from his parents because he’s ashamed that he didn’t do well.

In other instances, we allow failure to define who we are. To Susan, her failure to finish college meant she wasn’t smart enough to get an education. Someone may believe one failure in business means he was never destined to be an entrepreneur, or an individual who fails to publish his first book may conclude he’s a poor writer.

Giving up can also be a learned behavior. Perhaps as a child, your mother swooped in to help you accomplish any task you weren’t able to do on the first try. Or maybe when you told your teacher you couldn’t figure out your math work, she gave you the answers so you never really had to figure it out for yourself. Always expecting someone else to come to our rescue can be a hard habit to break, even into adulthood, making it less likely that we’ll be willing to try again if we fail.

Finally, many people give up because they have a fixed mind-set about their abilities. They don’t think that they have any control over their level of talent so they don’t bother improving and trying again after failure. They think if you weren’t born with a God-given talent to do something, there’s no use in trying to learn.

THE PROBLEM WITH GIVING IN TO FAILURE
Susan spent a lot of time thinking things like I’m not smart enough to be a teacher, and I could never help students succeed because I’m a failure. Those types of thoughts kept her from achieving her goals, and it never occurred to her that she could still go back to college. If you give up like Susan did after your first failure, you will likely miss out on a lot of opportunities in your life. Failing can actually be a wonderful experience—but only if you move forward with the knowledge you gain from it.

It’s difficult to succeed without failing at least once. Take, for example, Theodor Geisel—also known as Dr. Seuss—whose first book was rejected by more than twenty publishers. He eventually went on to publish forty-six of the most well-known children’s books, some of which were turned into television specials, feature films, and Broadway musicals. Had he given up the first time he failed to get a publishing deal, the world would never have had the opportunity to appreciate his unique writing style that has been entertaining children for decades.

Giving up after the first failure can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Each time you quit, you reinforce the idea that failure is bad, which in turn will prevent you from trying again; thus your fear of failure inhibits your ability to learn. In a 1998 study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers compared fifth-grade children who were praised for their intelligence and children who were praised for their efforts. All the children were given a very difficult test. After they were shown their scores, they were given two options—they could look at the tests of children who scored lower or the tests of children who scored higher. The children who were praised for their intelligence were most likely to look at the scores of the children who scored lower so they could bolster their self-esteem. Children who had been praised for their efforts were more eager to look at the tests of children who scored better so they could learn from their mistakes. If you’re afraid of failure, you’ll be less likely to learn from mistakes and, therefore, less likely to try again.

DON’T GIVE UP
As soon as Susan realized that just because she failed once didn’t necessarily mean she’d fail again, she was more open to looking at her options for an education. Once she started behaving like someone who could recover from failure—by researching colleges—she began to feel more hopeful that she could fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher.

IDENTIFY BELIEFS ABOUT FAILURE THAT PREVENT YOU FROM TRYING AGAIN

Thomas Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of all time. He held 1,093 patents for his products and the systems to support those products. Some of his most famous inventions included the electric lightbulb, motion pictures, and the phonograph. But not all his inventions became wildly successful. You’ve probably never heard of his electric pen or the ghost machine. Those are just a couple of his many failed inventions.

Edison knew that a certain number of his inventions were bound to fail and when he created a product that either didn’t work or didn’t seem to be a hit with the market, he didn’t view himself as a failure. In fact, he considered each failure to be an important learning opportunity. According to a biography written about Thomas Edison in 1915, a young assistant once commented that it was a shame that they had been working for weeks without seeing any results, and Edison replied by saying, “Results! No results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.”

If you refuse to try again after you fail once, it’s likely you have developed some inaccurate or unproductive beliefs about failure. Those beliefs influence the way you think, feel, and behave toward failure. Here’s what the research says about perseverance and failure:

•    Deliberate practice is more important than natural talent. Although we’re often led to believe that we’re either gifted with natural-born talent or we aren’t, most talents can be cultivated through hard work. Research studies have found that after ten years of daily practice, people can surpass others with natural talent in chess, sports, music, and the visual arts. After twenty years of dedicated practice, many people who lack natural talent can gain world-class achievement. But often we believe if we weren’t born with a specific gift, we won’t ever be able to develop enough talent to become successful. This belief can cause you to give up before you’ve had a chance to cultivate the skills necessary to succeed.

•    Grit is a better predictor of success than IQ. Clearly, not everyone with a high IQ reaches a high level of achievement. In fact, a person’s IQ isn’t a very good predictor of whether he or she will become successful. Grit, defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, has been shown to be a much more accurate predictor of achievement than IQ.

•    Attributing failure to a lack of ability leads to learned helplessness. If you think that your failure is caused by a lack of ability—and you think you can’t improve upon that ability—you’re likely to develop a sense of learned helplessness. Instead of trying again after you fail, you’ll either give up or wait for someone else to do it for you. If you think you can’t improve, you likely won’t try to get better.

Don’t allow inaccurate beliefs about your abilities to hold you back from becoming successful. Spend some time thinking about your beliefs surrounding failure. Look at your path to success as a marathon and not a sprint. Accept that failure is part of the process that helps you learn and grow.

CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT FAILURE

If you think failure is terrible, you’ll struggle to try a task over again if you’ve already failed at it once. Here are some thoughts about failure that will likely discourage you from trying again:

•    Failure is unacceptable.

•    I’m either a complete success or a complete failure.

•    Failure is always all my fault.

•    I failed because I’m bad.

•    People won’t like me if I fail.

•    If I couldn’t do something right the first time, I won’t be able to do it right the second time.

•    I’m not good enough to succeed.

Irrational thoughts about failure may cause you to quit after your first failed attempt. Work on replacing them with more realistic thoughts. Failure isn’t likely as bad as you make it out to be in your mind. Focus on your efforts instead of the outcome. When you’re trying to complete a difficult task, focus on what you could gain from the challenge. Can you learn something new? Can you improve your skills even if you aren’t initially successful? By thinking about what you can learn from the experience, you’ll be more likely to accept that failure is part of the process.

Self-compassion, and not necessarily high self-esteem, may be the key to reaching your full potential. While being too hard on yourself can lead to the resignation that you’re just not good enough, and being too easy on yourself may lead to excuses for your behavior, self-compassion strikes just the right balance. Self-compassion means viewing your failures kindly yet realistically. It means understanding that everyone has shortcomings, including you, and that failure doesn’t decrease your worth as a person. When you take a compassionate approach to your own weaknesses, you’ll be more likely to recognize there is room to grow and improve.

In a 2012 study titled “Self-Compassion Increased Self-Improvement Motivation,” students were given a chance to improve failed test scores. One group of students took a self-compassionate view of their failure while the other group focused on bolstering their self-esteem. The results found that the students who practiced self-compassion studied 25 percent longer and scored higher on the second test compared with the students who focused on increasing their self-esteem.

Avoid making your entire self-worth contingent upon high achievement or you’ll be less likely to risk doing things where you may fail. Replace the irrational thoughts with these realistic reminders:

•    Failure is often part of the journey to success.

•    I can handle failure.

•    I can learn from my failures.

•    Failure is a sign that I’m challenging myself and I can choose to try again.

•    I have the power to overcome failure if I choose.

FACE YOUR FEAR OF FAILURE

My father-in-law, Rob, was the type of guy who could always laugh at himself and he felt no shame in repeating his stories about failure to everyone. But I don’t think he considered any of them failures. In fact, I’m pretty certain that if it made for a good story, he considered his adventure a success.

One story that stands out in my mind stems back from his days as a pilot in the 1960s. He used to fly people around on private aircraft as an air taxi service. Sometimes he picked up customers who were getting off a commercial flight and were then taking an air taxi to their final destination. One particular time he was picking up a wealthy businessman. Since airport security was a lot more relaxed back then, he was able to greet the man right when he stepped off his commercial plane onto the tarmac.

While most private pilots would have waited, holding a sign that read their customer’s name, that wasn’t Rob’s style. Instead, when his passenger stepped off the plane, Rob shook his hand and said, “Great to meet you, Mr. Smith. I’ll be your pilot today.” Mr. Smith responded by saying how flattered he was that Rob recognized him right away. But what Mr. Smith didn’t know was that Rob had actually shaken every man’s hand as he stepped off the plane and uttered the exact same words, “Great to meet you, Mr. Smith.” If the person looked confused or said he wasn’t Mr. Smith, Rob simply moved on to greet the next person until he eventually found Mr. Smith.

I think many people would be embarrassed if they greeted someone by the wrong name, and they may shy away from greeting strangers so robustly in the future. But not Rob. He’d happily shake a stranger’s hand and call him by the wrong name. He knew that he’d eventually find Mr. Smith. He wasn’t afraid of failing over and over again until he got it right.

If you get used to failing, it becomes a lot less scary, especially once you learn that failure and rejection aren’t the worst things that could happen to you.

MOVE FORWARD AFTER FAILURE

If your efforts aren’t successful at first, spend some time evaluating what happened and how you want to proceed. If you failed at something that isn’t all that important to you, you may decide it’s not worth investing more time or energy into trying again. And sometimes that makes sense. For example, I’m a terrible artist. My drawings usually consist of stick figures, but when I fail at drawing, I don’t find it worth my time and energy to succeed in that one area of my life. Instead, I’d rather devote my energy to areas I feel passionate about.

If you need to overcome an obstacle in your life to help you reach your dream, however, it makes sense to try again. But doing the exact same thing over again won’t help. Instead, create a plan that will increase your chance of success. Just like you need to learn from mistakes to avoid repeating them, you need to learn from failure so you can do better the next time. Sometimes that means improving your skills; at other times, that may mean looking for opportunities where your skills may be appreciated.

Elias “Walt” Disney certainly didn’t become wildly successful without a few failures along the way. He originally opened a business called Laugh-O-Gram, where he contracted with the Kansas City Theater to screen his seven-minute fairy tales that combined live action with animation. Although his cartoons became popular, Walt was deeply in debt and was forced to declare bankruptcy just a few short years later.

But that didn’t stop Walt. He and his brother moved to Hollywood to begin the Disney Brothers’ Studio. They got a deal with a distributor who was expected to distribute a cartoon character Walt created—Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. But within a few years, the distributor stole the rights to Oswald and several of his other cartoon characters. The Disney brothers quickly produced three of their own cartoons featuring one of the characters Walt had invented—Mickey Mouse. But they failed to find distribution for it. It wasn’t until sound was incorporated into film that they were able to put it into production.

Soon after, the Disney brothers’ success soared. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the Great Depression, Walt began producing films that generated huge amounts of revenue. From there, he and his brother built Disneyland, a $17 million theme park. It became a huge success and they were able to use the profits to begin building Disney World. Sadly, Walt passed away before the theme park was finished.

A man who went bankrupt after a failed business venture in the cartoon industry became a multimillionaire within a few years during the Great Depression. The same cartoons that received repeated rejections from people who didn’t think they would ever be a success earned him more Academy Awards than any other person in history. Even though Walt passed away almost fifty years ago, the Disney Company remains a thriving billion-dollar corporation and Walt’s cartoon character, Mickey Mouse, remains the primary symbol of Disney. Clearly, Walt was a man who used his failures to motivate him to become successful.

BOUNCING BACK AFTER FAILURE WILL MAKE YOU STRONGER
Wally Amos worked as a talent agent who was known for sending his homemade chocolate chip cookies to celebrities in an effort to entice them to sign on with him. At the urging of his friends, he eventually quit working as an agent and devoted his life to baking cookies. With financial support from some of his celebrity friends, he opened his first gourmet cookie shop and called it “Famous Amos.”

The store became wildly popular and the business expanded quickly. Amos opened several more stores across the country over the next decade. His success earned him national attention, including an Award of Entrepreneurial Excellence from President Ronald Reagan.

But as a high school dropout without any formal training, Amos lacked business knowledge and his million-dollar empire began to struggle. He attempted to hire people who could help, but unfortunately they also lacked the ability to turn the company around. Eventually, Amos was forced to sell his company. And not only had he experienced financial trouble with his business, but he also experienced a major financial crisis in his personal life: he lost his home to foreclosure.

A few years later he attempted to launch a new cookie company—Wally Amos Presents Chip and Cookie. But the company executives who had purchased Famous Amos sued him for using his own name. He changed the name of his new business to “Uncle Noname.” His new cookie company faced steep competition and he wasn’t able to make it successful. As his debt rose to over a million dollars, he was forced to file bankruptcy.

Finally, Amos opened a muffin company. But this time, he left the day-to-day operations to a partner who had expertise in food distribution. He’d learned from his previous failures that he needed help operating the business. His new business hasn’t soared to the heights of his cookie business, but the company remains viable to this day.

Eventually, Amos found another break. Keebler acquired his original brand of Famous Amos cookies. And management hired him to be the product’s spokesperson. Although he could have been bitter about the fact that the company he founded had achieved tremendous success now that he no longer owned it, Amos gratefully and humbly returned to urging people to buy the cookies he had begun making over thirty years ago. He’s also found success as an author and a motivational speaker.

Failure can build character by challenging you in new ways. It can help you identify areas in your life that need work as well as hidden strengths you’ve never before recognized. In Susan’s case, once she enrolled in college, she gained confidence in her ability to handle future setbacks. She no longer viewed failure as final but instead thought of it as a way to improve herself. Learning how to persevere despite failure increases your mental strength over time as you recognize how failure can improve your performance.

Understanding that you will be okay, even if you fail repeatedly, offers much peace and contentment in life. You’ll no longer worry about being the best or feeling like you have to achieve the most to be appreciated. Instead, you can rest assured that with each failure, you’re becoming better.

TROUBLESHOOTING AND COMMON TRAPS
Sometimes people are comfortable with failure in some areas of their lives but not others. A person may be used to failing to close the deal as a salesperson but may be very upset if she fails to become elected to city council. Identify the areas in your life where you may be more apt to give up after failure and focus on how you can learn from all the failures you experience. If you’re not used to trying again after you fail, facing your fears head-on can be difficult at first. You’re likely to feel a range of emotions and your thoughts may discourage you from trying again. With practice, however, you’ll be able to discover how failure can be an important step in becoming successful.

WHAT’S HELPFUL

Viewing failure as a learning opportunity
Resolving to try again if your first attempt was not successful
Facing your fear of failure
Developing a new plan to increase your chance of success
Identifying and replacing irrational thoughts about failure
Focusing on improving your skills rather than showing them off
WHAT’S NOT HELPFUL

Allowing failure to stop you from reaching your goals
Considering future attempts to be a lost cause if your first attempt wasn’t successful
Quitting because you don’t want to tolerate discomfort
Defining a task as impossible because it didn’t work the first time
Allowing yourself to think that failure is worse than it is
Refusing to participate in tasks where you are not likely to excel