Today April 7th, William Wordsworth, English poet, was born, back in 1770. I came across a quote from him the other day, which is still very relevant today – although it is also attributed to Oliver Goldsmith.
“Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall”
Many regards failures and mistakes as something totally negative, overlooking the fact that most successful people failed several times before succeeding – they persevered. Mistakes can be a valuable learning opportunity, which can increase our confidence; they are ultimately what enables us to grow and develop, as long as we learn from them. They teach us how to correct the behaviours and bad habits which caused them.
I have made more than my fair share of mistakes both in my personal life and in my career, and they eventually taught me valuable lessons. I say ‘eventually’ because, I have to admit that to my shame, it took me some time to realise that making a mistake, failing at something was not simply a negative thing, that you should quickly forget, carry on as before, until eventually you repeat that same mistake. But I learned my lesson.
But what does ‘learning from our mistakes’ really mean?
We need to understand the reasons why we made the mistake in the first place, make adjustments and corrections, so that we don’t make the same mistakes again. We need to find a lesson from our mistakes, so that they are a positive experience. They highlight areas of improvement we need to make. For instance, arriving late at important meetings with a client on several occasions, is a likely sign that you need to focus and improve on your time management skills. Forgetting a very important task or missing a deadline, highlights needed improvement in your systems.
So, how can we learn from our mistakes?
American blogger and author Dan Rockwell’s excellent ‘Leadership Freak blog’ has a simple great 5 way process to learn from your mistakes 5 Ways to Learn from Mistakes - Leadership Freak – do check his blog - In summary:
1. Own it - The person who owns their mistakes grows, but blamers repeat mistakes. Say, “I screwed - up.”
2. Make it right - You learn and grow when you fix what you did wrong.
3. Know who you are - You made a mistake, but you aren’t a mistake. When personal identity is tied to mistakes, we tend to hide and blame.
4. Debrief - We learn more from failure than we learn from success. Ask the four questions of an after-action review:
- What were our intended results?
- What were our actual results?
- What caused our results?
- What will we sustain or improve?
5. Teach - Teach others what you learned from screwing up. At next team meeting ask: “What have you learned from mistakes?”
It is also worth asking a colleague for feedback. Positive constructive feedback is a really valuable tool, but first, admitting to yourself that you may not know everything and make mistakes, are probably two of the most difficult things to do. And so is asking for help, because it is often regarding as something negative, a failure. However, as John Maxwell put it ‘teamwork makes the dream works…’
The world is full of successful people who failed before succeeding; ‘successful failures’ you might call them. Here are a few very successful people who failed before making it:
- Stephen King - One of his most successful books, Carrie, was rejected by 30 publishers. King threw the manuscript away and almost gave up.
- Oprah Winfrey – She suffered many sets backs from an early age. She was fired from one of her first TV jobs after the producer thought she was unfit for television.
- Charles Darwin – He was considered an average student, and he abandoned a career in medicine as a result.
- Steven Spielberg – He struggled with dyslexia to start with, and was rejected by the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts twice.
- Walt Disney – As a journalist, his former newspaper editor told him that he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.
- Michael Jordan – His high school coach cut him from his basketball team. Jordan famously stated:
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
You could argue that finding success can’t happen unless you have gone through some hurdles, have struggled and met with failures along the way. Fighting your way forward, getting up after falling make you stronger and give you even more drive and resilience. And when you achieve the success, you have worked for so hard, it will be all the sweeter and the more enjoyable.
If you are interested in developing your skills as a team leader, check out our website, or contact us today to discuss your training needs and see how we can help you.
