Walk Off Winning

11Fall Forward When You Fail—and You're Gonna Fail!

So far, I have pointed out all the values, traits, and practices it takes to be a better leader for your team. When you invest in your team, you have the ability to foster long-term success. But there will be many days things don't go your way. All the preparation you put into a project can be quickly washed away due to factors you can't control. Setbacks and failures will certainly happen and are a natural part of growth and development. So get ready for it, as you undoubtably will fail. Yet with the proper mindset, it becomes an engine to drive you to becoming a quality leader or successful person.

Try a little test to see just how many people with great success stories have failed over and over again. Google “Successful people who failed.” It's an impressive list; you rarely find a highly successful person who hasn't failed, sometimes in remarkable ways.

When failure happens, you can't blame those “shoulda, woulda, coulda” explanations. It is very important to develop the ability of keeping your emotions from getting the best of you when facing failure. Rather, you need the ability to refocus and limit any damage caused by failure. Explore new methods to build off of setbacks and learn to appreciate failure as great teaching tools for personal growth.

In and Out of Your Control

Failure happens in two different forms. It can involve failure to manage variables around you that are beyond your control. For example, when a ...