How To Be Resilient After A Failure: Coach Yourself Through Failure And Get Your Momentum Back
The exciting thing about a new week is that it is our opportunity to start over, on a blank sheet of paper so to speak. Yes we are in December and most people typically look forward to the New Year to start fresh, but why wait until next year when you can start now? I personally have set the intention to end the year with a bang and incorporate some good reflection and rejuvenation time while I am at it.
Unfortunately even when we push ourselves to take massive action, it doesn't always work out as planned. When you get out of the bleacher seats as spectators and get into the middle of the arena as a participant, things are not as easy as they appeared to be from the outside looking in. Maybe last week didn’t pan out as you hoped it would, but you get a chance to do your own do over. It could have been your energy levels that were dipping so low that you didn't have the energy go all in to accomplish your stretch goals.
Maybe it was in the area of your finances, you spent a bit much more than planned even after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Perhaps you procrastinated from having that tough conversation that you know you needed to lean in and have or maybe you built up the courage to have the conversation and it went very very wrong. You might be defining the outcome of your actions as failure.
Whatever your definition of “failure”, only you define it. On the other side of taking courageous risks is the possibility of everything not going as you had hoped for. This is the reason risk taking is hard, because of the fear of failure. We fear failure many times because we want to avoid the feeling of shame. Shame sends a message that we are unacceptable as human beings. At its core, shame drives a message of rejection and starts us down a spiral of feeling not worthy or not good enough.
The feelings of shame and fear take us out of a resourceful state, but we need resourcefulness in order to bounce back from a failure. Resilience is needed to keep growing and thriving in life, including right here and right now in your situation. If we are not resilient, we become stuck and our growth becomes stunted.
Whether it is a bad performance review, a disastrous meeting with your manager or clients or you can fill in the blanks, resilience is a skill that will prove to be very useful at some point in your life or career. Here are three tools that I use often adapted from one of my favorite books "The Charisma Myth" by coach Olivia Fox Cabane, that can help you get out of a downward spiral after a failure so you can start coaching yourself versus criticizing yourself. It will help you turn down the volume on your inner critic and activate your resourceful internal coach!
How to be resilient through failure
1. De-stigmatize discomfort: this is to reduce the power of the unfavorable experience by understanding that it's normal, common, and many very smart and successful people have had similar negative experiences, even people you look up to and admire. Guess what, they didn't die and their careers aren't over. Knowing that we are not alone in our challenging times, takes away the sting of stigma or shame that sometimes tries to paralyze us.
2. Neutralize negativity: Neutralize negative thoughts by realizing that your thoughts are not necessarily accurate at all. One of the reasons we are so affected by negative thoughts is that we think our minds have an accurate grasp on reality, and that its conclusions are irrefutably valid. This is however, a fallacy. Our minds view of reality can be and often is, completely distorted. We also tend to over value and give too much meaning to one situation that in the great scheme of things don't have such a heavy weight. Even though first impressions may have an big impact, the reality is that our personal brand is built over time through many different situations and interactions. True character is proved by how we show up everyday over an extended period of time, so don't over value one meeting or one interaction, it is rare that you don't have an opportunity to redeem yourself.
One tip I love from this book is to de-personalize the experience. Rather than allowing yourself to be swallowed up by the experience, just pretend you're a scientist observing an interesting phenomenon. Instead of saying I'm feeling ashamed, just say "How interesting, there are self-critical thoughts arising." This allows you to focus on the thoughts and how to manage them rather than allowing them to consume you. It may sound a bit odd but the strategy allows you to get out of an emotional state and into a logical one leading you to be in a place of resourcefulness where you can shift to problem solving. Think of all the other times you felt just like this in the past and thought you wouldn't make it through and yet you did!
3. Rewrite reality aka reframe: Since most of what is perceived is probably not accurate anyway, why not adapt a view that will put you in the most resourceful state? A state that will lead you to being more resourceful and to problem-solve rather than spiral. Reframing a situation allows you to give meaning to the experience that will allow you to move forward with a better approach rather than being stuck in the past wishing things had happened differently. You can reframe the setback into a meaning that gets you into action again. Reframing is a fundamental skill in resiliency. It is a cognitive tool that allows us to apply a perspective to our experiences that gives us back our power. The facts remain the same but a deliberate shift is made in how we interpret it. This blog will give you more tips on how to reframe a failure to help propel you to success rather than hinder your progress.
Here are some powerful questions that can help you shift from a disempowering interpretation to an empowering one that moves you forward.
a. What did you learn from that experience?
b. What do you know now that you didn't know before?
c. How will the learning inform a different approach going forward?
d. What can you try this time?
e. Who can you consult to brainstorm a more effective approach?
f. Who will you be in this situation (access your aspirational self)?
g. In order to be empowered in this situation, what is my best next action to take?
Be resilient. Coach yourself through failures instead of staying stuck in a rut of criticism and shame.
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