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Turning
Failures into Opportunities
The Three Steps |
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Get rid of
all negative emotions – and lean: There is no
failure, only
feedback!
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Go into a fresh-start mindset
– more intelligently: Given the situation you are in
now as a starting point, consider various options: what
opportunities for and a roadmap to ultimate success can you see
or imagine?
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Take different views of the situation:
Having looked at the scene from your view,
look at it from different perspectives, try each of these
views:
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an optimist's view;
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a pessimist's view;
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an anarchist's view;
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an architect's view;
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a child's view;
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a poet's view;
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a strategist's view;
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a competitor's view;
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a customer's view;
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a supplier's view;
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Salvador Dali's view;
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Charles Darwin's view.
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Turning Failures Into
Opportunities
"When you make a
mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your
mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot
be changed. The future is yet in your power."
~ Phyllis Bottome
To profit from experience you must be open and
willing to learn, even from what some people might consider a failure.
"Generally, people have a narrow and negative understanding of the meaning
of failure, and therefore tend to fide from it, a reflex that can block
valuable learning," writes
Peter Skat-Rørdam.1 What may seem to be a failure can actually
lead to new opportunities, especially if the knowledge acquired from the
failed projects can be exploited. Right
learning questions
can serve as a starting point for the assimilation of learning.
Changing your perspective is the key to finding
success in seeming failure. "Optimistic
thinking has sometimes gotten a bad rap as being unrealistic, but
research has found that we can indeed live
happier,
healthier, and
more successful lives if we can learn to
discover opportunities in problems," says
Charles C. Manz.2 These problems then become
merely challenging opportunities that we can turn to our advantage.
Creative
Problem Solving
"I have not failed 700 times. I
have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving those 700 ways
will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not
work, I will find the way that will work."
~ Thomas Edison
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