4 Ways to Turn Failure Into Success

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Failures happen to us all.

Sometimes they’re our fault, sometimes the universe just seems to work against our well laid plans.

After Wednesday’s post on How to Change Your Life, I spent some time thinking about the applications for the Accepting Responsibility + Proactive Action formula and its various applications.  One comment, made by the incomparable Evan Hadkins really got the old hamster wheel churning.  Evan noted:

I think I’d add a third element or expand the first one. See how what we are doing creates our current life. This adds specificity and grounds the responsibility. If you see what I mean.

Basically, part of changing your life is being able to look at what you are currently doing, assess if it is working, and then adjust accordingly to get to a different place.

I believe one of the most powerful ways someone can proactively work to change their life is in the way they handle failure.  Failure can be devastating financially, emotionally, and even physically depending on the situation. It is generally accepted as a shameful thing, something that will hang over your head the rest of your life and prove to everyone you’re not as good/smart/successful/happy/cool as they thought you were.

Yet in my life, I have found that my failures have often times given me a fast-lane pass to success, and usually success beyond what I had originally intended to accomplish.

Failure, in my mind, means not reaching your goal…yet.

If you have experienced any type of failure in your life – maybe a romantic relationship ended, maybe you let yourself get out of shape, maybe your business venture never got off the ground, or maybe you just can’t kick that habit – then you have also experienced a moment when you had it in your power to turn it all around.

Someone once told me that we are not defined by our successes, but by the way we embrace our failures.  Don’t let your unsuccessful attempt to achieve something stop you from getting what you want.  Failures are actually golden opportunities to succeed…you just have to know how to handle them.

In my experience, there are four major methods you can use to turn failure into success.  Have you experienced any other ways that work?

The Persistence Method

This method of turning failure into success could also easily be called the “Traveling Salesman Method” or the “Patrick Swazye Convincing Whoopi Goldberg to Help Him In Ghost Method,” but since both these titles are too long, the term persistence works more succinctly.  The basic principle behind this method is if at first you don’t succeed, try try again until you do.  If someone gives you “no” for an answer, go back the next day and ask again.  If you didn’t lose weight on the diet this week, get back on program and work at it again next week. If your business didn’t meet your numbers this month, then hit the ground harder next month and try again.

The Persistence Method for turning failure into success works when you believe that what you are doing/asking for/thinking is right and that eventually it will get the result you want. If you know you have a good idea, don’t stop until someone pays attention.  If you know you can lose weight on this or that program, don’t stop trying until you do.  Tenacity and not taking no for an answer (even if you actually get no for an answer over and over) can sometimes be the best way to push through that wall of failure and reach success on the other side.  It will also boost your confidence to know that you got what you wanted by not giving up and not compromising. 

The Alternate Venue Method

Sometimes its not the idea that is failing, it is where you are implementing it.  The Alternate Venue Method for turning failure into success works by keeping the same principles and just adjusting where you are putting them to work to achieve your goal.  If your business is not doing well at one mall, maybe it should relocate to another part of town where there are more of your target audience, or maybe it should go totally digital and be an online shop. If your weight loss efforts are failing, maybe you should switch diet programs or move onto an exercise-based program instead.

The Alternate Venue Method works best when you feel that your principles are sound, but the “location” in which they are implemented may be sub-par. This is where Evan’s wonderful point of being aware of what you are doing now comes into play as a key skill.  You need to be aware of the pros and cons for your “location,” and if you deem them to be unhelpful or hurtful to your goal proactively moving said location and trying again.

The Frankenstein Method

The Frankenstein Method is characterized by examining the whole attempt, cutting out parts that are not helping, and pasting in new strategies instead.  Maybe the location your business is at isn’t the best, but maybe you could also change the layout of your store and adjust the colors in your logo to appeal to customers more.  Maybe you should switch weight loss programs, but also implement a separate exercise program as well.

Like the Frankenstein monster, this method requires you to be willing to pull your goal strategy apart, see what’s working and what isn’t, and then put it back together…maybe with parts from another strategy patched in here and there. This method is more time consuming than the first two as it is a return to the drawing board.  This method for turning failure into success should be implemented when you know somethings need re-evaluating but there are salvageable elements of the idea.

The Raze It Method

The final method to turn failure into success is the Raze It Method.  This is a return to the starting point with the idea to come out and try again with an entirely new approach.  Sometimes the ways we anticipate succeeding in our goals seem like great methods at the time, however after failing we can see the holes in the strategy and the need to correct course.

Many people see the Raze It Method as the essential elements of failure: you tried, it didn’t work, so you will start over with nothing to show for the first attempt.  However, this is so not true – what you have to show for the first attempt is wisdom, experience, and an idea of what not to do.  How many times did they say Thomas Edison found to not make a light bulb? The number doesn’t matter, just the idea: when you fail and have to start over, you have just found a way not to get what you want so if you’re smart (which I know you are!) you won’t do again.

There is something liberating in the Raze It Method – starting fresh, starting over, starting anew.  The only way it is failure in my book is if you look at the goal you were trying to achieve and say, “you know, it is too hard, I’ll never be able to get it so I won’t try again.”  That is failure.

There are thousands of ways you can not get what you want in life.  Luckily, almost all of those ways provides a hidden path to get straight to what you do want.

Remember, the only thing that determines whether or not you fail is you.

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Here’s to your Uncommon Life,