‍Do you find that failure can paralyze you? Well, failure is a part of the journey towards a successful business, so let’s talk about failure and how we can positively pivot from it. In this article we’ll talk about: Real-World Examples of Failures The First Step to Overcome Failure in Business In times of failure, turn to your community!

Do you find that failure can paralyze you? Well, failure is a part of the journey towards a successful business, so let’s talk about failure and how we can positively pivot from it. In this article we’ll talk about:

  • Real-World Examples of Failures
  • The First Step to Overcome Failure in Business
  • In times of failure, turn to your community!

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Failure is a natural part of life that everyone experiences it in some form or another. But why is it that when we face failure we feel like we’re the only one in the world this is happening to?

For me, sometimes I can feel I can’t do anything right, I won’t be able to bounce back from it, or I point the blame to someone on my team. Sometimes I feel like I don’t deserve success because of my failure.

This sounds crazy when I say it out loud, right? But many of us experience this paralyzation that comes from failure.

Here’s what PsychCentral says about failure:

“A cloud of failure colors your world like a pair of dark glasses you can’t remove. Often people don’t realize they are perceiving the world through a personal paradigm which makes feelings of failure inevitable – a self-limiting belief system that guarantees a sense of ongoing helplessness and apathy.  (Psych Central, 2022)

Real-World Examples of Failures

You spent months working on a new product launch, putting countless hours of research and time into its development. Upon launching the product, you did not receive the return you expected. This product now sits on the shelf after investing so much time and money into its development…

You lose a big client that makes up a significant part of your revenue. Now you have to work twice as hard to make back that revenue…

You’re so busy and preoccupied with things involving the business that you miss an important event or deadline. You need to be more organized and improve time management, but you have too much on your plate…

You lose a high-performing employee because of changes in the company or because they found another opportunity. You need to improve and speed up the hiring process… 

Have you experienced any of these things? You’re not alone. As business owners, we have or will experience any of these situations in our careers. Oftentimes, more than once.

Here’s an important thing to remember – just because we fail doesn’t mean we are failures. We can’t let failure define us, not let it shame us.

If we allow it to do any of these things, it prevents us from moving forward and taking the much-needed risks that will propel our business forward. It is better to not think of them as failures but rather key learning opportunities in our progress of becoming a better business owner.

The First Step to Overcome Failure in Business is…

Take accountability! The knee-jerk reaction may be to find blame and identify who is responsible for the mistake or failure. But doing so drains a company and its leader of his or her power. We use the Point of Power to show how leaders can choose to take control and be powerful models of behavior or choose a powerless path.

While there are instances where a leader needs to find out the root cause and who is directly responsible for a failure to discover what processes broke down, not every mistake or failure requires intensive dissection.

Those leaders who choose to operate above the ‘Point of Power’ demonstrate three characteristics; Accountability, Ownership, and Responsibility. Those who choose Blame, Excuses, and Denial remain languishing below the ‘Point of Power’.

Point of Power

In times of failure, turn to your community!

As previously mentioned, you are not the first or last to experience failure and many of the people you know may have experienced the same failure. Our first instinct is to hide our failure out of shame. We almost want to act like it never happened.

But what this does is it creates that shame that prevents us from reaching out and getting help. When we reach out to our surrounding community we make those connections and learn valuable knowledge to help us pivot from these failures.

If you don’t have a circle of business owners that you can trust, now you do! Reach out to me about any failures or problems you’ve experienced for solutions to overcome them. I’ve worked with hundreds of businesses who have experienced a wide range of problems and together we turn that failure into profitable pivots for their business.

Schedule a complimentary coaching session today!