One of the most powerful fears we all have is fear of failure. Failure is more than just losing money. You lose face in front of everyone who knows you. You lose your self-confidence and your belief in your skills and talents. Yes, failure can be crippling…but only if you allow it to be so.
In truth, some of the most seasoned entrepreneurs have gone through their share of failures. They lost everything or a significant part of what they owned, but they still believed in their ability to create something useful, valuable and leave their legacy through a business endeavor.
The secret of moving on is to turn your failure into a ramp for boosting yourself forward to a new business enterprise. You have to find ways to turn your failure into motivation for success. While there is no secret formula for it, here are a few useful tips and advice.
1. Be Kind to Yourself after a Failure
We all talk to ourselves – in our mind or aloud when no one is around. We congratulate ourselves when we succeed and we chide ourselves when we fail. Be critical to yourself, but don’t bash yourself in. In the next few days after your failure, you are very vulnerable. You are trying to make sense of what happened and accept defeat. Admit the failure, but do not create a negative image of yourself in your subconscious.
There is one immutable truth: you become what you believe you are. If you cannot separate yourself from your failure, you will start believing that you ARE a failure. And this is a very dangerous path to take.
2. Analyze Your Failure
A failure is a complete loss for you if you cannot learn anything from it. Once you have got over your initial shock and disbelief, start analyzing the chain of events and decisions which led to the failure. Somewhere down the line you made a mistake. Maybe you were overly enthusiastic in estimating your market size or cash flow. Maybe you believed too much in your product and failed to test a minimum viable product (MVP) properly.
At any rate, once you understand what went wrong, you have learned a lesson. This lesson will help you become a better entrepreneur.
3. If You Fail at First…Try and Try Again
Henry Ford declared bankruptcy twice before he became the iconic car manufacturer we all know. Steve Jobs was fired from the company he founded and then got it back. Henry J. Heinz failed in the simple business of selling horse radishes. He decided to try making ketchup and nowadays you probably have a bottle of Heinz ketchup in your pantry.
All these businessmen and many others failed and recouped and tried again. They did not let fear define them. They had that entrepreneurial spark still shining within them. If you do have it, do not let it die out. Try and try again.
4. Seek Feedback
You can be easily biased by the fact that you failed at something you believed in so passionately. This is why you probably do not see all the facets of your failure. Ask your friends, your acquaintances and your network of business associates and partners to share their views on your failure.
They will probably tell you things which will hurt you momentarily, but remember that they do not want to humiliate you, but to offer their honest view on what went wrong. Their feedback will help you think outside the box and discover some inherent mistakes you kept making without being aware of them.
5. Be Enthusiastic about a New Beginning
Every new business venture is an adventure. It is your chance to start building something meaningful all over again, to overcome your shortcomings and to prove to yourself and to others that you can do it. Every successful entrepreneur on this planet is, first and foremost, an enthusiast – someone who enjoys what they are doing and looks forward to the future and not in the past.