Hello and welcome to Inspiration Creek. I’m Stephanie Lema. If you’re new to the show, thank you so much for joining today. And if you’ve listened in before, I’m so grateful that you’re back. Thank you. 

This is episode number three, inspired by failure. You might be wondering, how can you be inspired by failure? Thought failure was when you bottom out. The loss, the upset, it’s time to pack it up and go home kind of moments. You can really look at it that way. But today we’re going to flip it around. Failure is simply a lack of success or inability to meet an expectation. And there’s different levels of failure.

We can have personal failures, professional failures. You can have a mishap at work and then relate it to being some major failure. And you, you know that kind where you ruminate, you stay up late thinking about it, you feel humiliated on some level and it can really be explained to others, but really only you know that devastation that you feel on the inside and then you’re stuck. You just feel like you’re in this failure loop.

Whether it’s work or personal, what we perceive as a failure is tied to our ego, our self worth, self esteem, self acceptance. 

A failure can also mean a hit to our confidence. Often the expectation we fail to meet is one that we’ve set on our own and we’ve created in our mind and that can really sting and set you back. I remember a time in my marketing career when I worked on a team that had an opportunity to rebrand the company and that included new branding, marketing materials and a website. It was a big deal for our little group and we worked on it with consultants and we had outside help to support the project.

My manager, the team that I worked on, and at the time, my manager gave me an opportunity to present the brand concept, logo, tagline, the whole package to the executive team. And we really knocked this presentation out of the park. It went so well, ended up launching all the elements of the project.

We won awards. It was a great moment in my career. Fast forward a couple years. We had a similar opportunity to rebrand a company on a freelance basis. I was still working with the same manager and I think we both really wanted to have that same kind of success with this project and this opportunity.

And we had put together all the elements of what we were going to present to the executive team and I had another opportunity to do the presentation. I remember going in feeling confident, feeling really good about what we were going to share with them, and I was standing in front of the team and gave the presentation. It turned into more of a critique. 

And on top of that, the manager that I was working with was unable to attend and was on just a really bad connection of speakerphone. And it was just a moment where I really felt like I bombed my ego, my self esteem, confidence, everything. All things kind of crushed. In that one presentation or following that presentation, I literally beat myself up because not only did that presentation not go very well, they ended up not moving forward with us and pulled the work.

So it took a long time for me to work through all of the negativity around that. I had a few debriefs with my manager and just constantly stuck in the loop of how I failed, all the things I did wrong, and how it was catastrophic and probably not going to get better. We went through all the things that went wrong because I was completely stuck on that, all the parts of the failure and all the thousand things that I could have done better. 

And I was literally venting to him and kind of spiraling back into my negative self talk of how I screwed it all up. And he stopped me and said something that really changed my perspective. He said, Steph, we’ve talked about all the things you think went wrong.

Let’s talk about what went right and how you can apply it for the next one. You see, the failure wasn’t a reflection of my abilities and it also wasn’t a time for me to retire. So I couldn’t just crawl away and not ever do a presentation or present in front of a group again. I would likely have to do that in my career. 

So this one didn’t go well and it felt bad. I mean, I’m sharing it and it was several years ago that this had happened, but it left such a great impression on me because it was a lesson of picking myself up, learning from the experience, and keep moving on and keep going forward. Our mindset and our willingness to grow often determine our response to failure. It comes back to how we think about it and what our mindset is. 

What kind of mindset do you have? Are you stuck in your ways with a fixed mindset, or are you looking ahead for how you can improve and be growing constantly with a growth mindset? My guess is if you’re listening to a podcast like this, that you are also in a growth mindset.

You want to grow, learn and improve. I mean, who doesn’t, right? With a growth mindset, you can learn the steps of how to thrive out of failure instead of hiding under the desk as I wanted to do. We’re going to talk about three ways failure can help you grow and even inspire you as you take the next step, take on that next project or that next challenge that you’re trying to accomplish.

We’re going to dig into growth mindset a little bit more.  A growth mindset means you believe your abilities aren’t fixed and you can improve through effort, learning and persistence. It’s more about the attitude that you face your challenges, how you process failures, and then how you adapt and evolve as you move forward.

Sure, we all want to succeed, but that road to success is usually littered with past challenges and failures, and those are really gifts that provide you the lessons to improve as you move forward. 

The difference between successful people and everyone else is really determination to turn that failure into life lessons that strengthen your resolve. It also is like a muscle of resilience that you can continue to build as you have different challenges that come your way. 

In fact, a study by Harvard Business Review found that businesses and entrepreneurs who experience early failures are more likely to succeed in subsequent attempts. 60% of successful entrepreneurs have experienced at least one failure before their breakthrough.

Let’s talk about how you can cultivate your growth mindset even in the toughest times of failure. So here are some ways that we could build the growth mindset muscles. 

First, you can embrace the challenges. View challenges as opportunities to learn and grow. They might feel like obstacles, but they’re really those teachable obstacles. In those teachable moments when you embrace the challenges, be patient and give yourself grace. Because growth is a process and you may experience setbacks, you could have that self awareness to where you can identify your current mindset and you can practice positive self talk. 

And if you’d like some tips on that, you can visit episode number two, that’s Inspired by Love, where I do talk about positive self talk and ways that you can build that muscle as well. You can also focus on action. What are you going to do next? You can sit staying stuck, or you can get up and start taking some action on your next steps. Ask for feedback. Be open to constructive criticism from others. Sometimes criticism might sting just a little bit when you get that feedback, but then that could also give you some valuable lessons and tools as you move forward.

Celebrate the successes and the small wins. Accept that imperfection is a natural part of being human. Every step is progress. Nothing will be perfect.

Even the most polished and experienced wise people, they’re not perfect and they make mistakes. The key is to learn from them and keep moving forward and stop seeking approval. Not everyone’s going to agree with what you’re doing. Don’t seek approval from others Unless you have a positive set of friends or people in your life, seeking out approval from others is probably not the right direction to go when you’re trying to cultivate your growth mindset.

These are some ways to build your growth mindset muscles and to help you reset following a failure, even if it’s just a challenge in your day. At the

beginning of the podcast, I mentioned that failure can inspire. So how can that be inspiring? 

Failure can actually create motivation. It may seem really far fetched. I mean, after the presentation failure, I wanted to crawl into bed, eat ice cream, do all the different coping things, but I didn’t. I did get stuck in the loop of negativity, but I didn’t stay stuck for long. And you shouldn’t either.

Especially if you feel like you’ve experienced a failure. It’s time to turn that around and to get motivated. So I’m going to completely date myself here. But if you cue up that Rocky theme song, I mean, the original Rocky, where he was training and he’s running up those steps in Philadelphia, he’s determined, he has the drive to overcome the odds, to prepare for that big fight.

Essentially it was acting as a powerful visual. The music was playing and he’s running up the stairs and the underdog with that spirit and going on that journey towards achieving the impossible. He was motivated and the song became just synonymous with anything that was motivating or something that you’re trying to achieve. 

Failure can also create that motivation. He was the underdog, right? So he was trying to pump himself up and they were trying to pump up that moment where he’s trying to achieve something that seems impossible. Failure can motivate you by providing those valuable lessons that we talked about the AHAs from the mistakes and the challenges. You can use these to improve your approach and strategy for next time. 

According to Goodwin University, based on what we learn from our failures, our brains create and maintain new neural pathways, helping us to avoid the same mistakes in the future, grow more resilient, and eventually find success. It can push you to work smarter as you’re focused on achieving that next goal. It acts as that learning opportunity to grow and then become better in the future, fostering that resilience and that determination to succeed. You can use that failure as a motivator. 

Of course, it’s okay to grieve and to process that failure and to feel the feels, because that’s important to do too. We all need to do that. But we just can’t stay down for very long. One of the ways that you can come back from that failure is practicing self compassion. With that, you could practice your self talk instead of I messed up, I did everything wrong, it was terrible. 

Whatever those messages are that you’re telling yourself, you could flip that around to I’m learning, I can take another approach next time. Next time I can focus a little bit differently or I can try xyz. There’s different ways to flip that around. If you’re telling yourself I was a failure next time I will succeed. Just flip it around to more positive self talk because you’re learning and you’re growing and things like, I am proud of myself for trying. Tomorrow I will have another chance to do it again or I did a really great job with that next time I want to improve xyz. 

Flipping to positive self talk when you’re coming back from a failure will help you not only grow, but will position you for the next challenge that you meet. Acknowledge your feelings without judgment and you can forgive what you perceive as mistakes. Really, that’s treating yourself with kindness, which will help increase your confidence and then reduce that stress. In the moment, you’re literally queuing up that rocky theme song in your mind to get motivated for the next step.

That next step can be positioning yourself for your next success.  Processing what happened, setting up your next plan, and then writing it down. Whatever the next steps are going to be, what we’re going to talk about, how writing them down can help you achieve that next goal. Did you know that using a pen and paper to write notes gives you a cognitive boost that comes with writing things down by hand? That means you give your brain a little pump of memory retention, focus, concentration, alertness and processing speed. Princeton University did an interesting research that showed that handwriting activates areas of the brain associated with learning, retention and memory. 

When you write, your brain processes the information more deeply compared to typing and it improves mental flow and decision making skills and it also helps combat procrastination. Writing improves that encoding process in the brain’s hippocampus where things are analyzed and from there decisions are made about what gets stored in your long term memory and in turn what gets discarded.

When you write things down, they have a much greater chance of being remembered. Pull out your pen and paper to outline your next move after a failure. A few prompts that can help you get started. You can start with what went wrong. Just get it all out in terms of all the things that you perceived went wrong during this time.

During the project, the challenge, whatever it is, write it down, what went wrong, and then next, write down what went right. Think of all the great things that you did during this time, all the challenges that you met, all the different things that you did, what went right during this time. And I’m sure you have several things that went right. Next you can pull out, what did you excel out at this time? 

And write down the 5 to 10, however many things you can think of that you excelled at during this time could be new skills, problem solving that you practiced, ways that you demonstrated your confidence or your commitment, how you overcame a challenge, how you made an impact on another person during this time.

There’s several things I am positive that you excelled at that you could jot down. Next, write down, what lessons did you learn? 

Looking at the first three questions, what went wrong? What did you excel at? And what went right? Those have valuable gems of lessons in there. What lessons did you learn? Write as many down as you can. And then the next step is really, what is your next step? And when you’re looking at next steps and next tasks, break them down into small, manageable tasks. It could just be one small thing that you do a day. Take the time to let the feels happen, let them flow and let them go.

When you’re ready, go back to that paper, to that list that you had jotted down and I guarantee you’ll be looking at it from a fresh and new perspective and you’ll be ready to start rising from those ashes and you’ll be stronger and wiser. You will not stay down for long, I promise you that. It’s time to start wrapping up this episode. 

We talked about how failure can actually inspire when you have first a growth mindset. What did I learn and how can I apply it for going forward next? Failure can inspire and motivate, right? We were talking about firing up that motivation after a failure to improve your approach and strategy for the next time. 

You can rise from those ashes just like the strong phoenix you are because you totally got this. And then planning out the next steps, writing down that list of all the things that went right, how you excelled. And then you can really plan out what your next steps are going to be. Get that brain body connection going with the pen and paper exercise that can really get you motivated and build the confidence and inspire you to move forward. 

As we come to an end of the podcast, we always wrap up with a quote. Our inspired by failure quote is by Confucius, the most famous teacher, philosopher and political theorist whose ideas have profoundly influenced people worldwide. Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. I love that, because what defines us is how well we rise after we fail, not the failure itself. 

We all experience failure, each and every one of us. It’s how we come back from that failure that is a testament to our attitude and growth and resilience. Now that is inspiring.

Thank you for listening in today. I hope you feel inspired. Until next time, this is Steph wishing you an inspired life.

Hi again. One last thing, this podcast is shared and presented publicly solely for entertainment and educational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended to be used as a substitute for advice from a professional coach, physician, therapist, psychotherapist, medical professional, or any other qualified professional. See you in the next episode.