The Art of Turning Failure into Victory – Part 1

An interaction between my wife and daughter yesterday made me think of a lesson I learned a while ago about failure.

Daughter: Mom, I want candy.

Wife: No.

Daughter: Please Mom, I want candy.

Wife: No, you had candy yesterday.

Daughter: (More forceful and hostile) I want candy!

Wife: I said no.

Daughter: (Now angry) I want candy now!

Wife: You can get angry, but you are not getting candy.

Daughter: (Now crying) Mom, I want candy. Please give me candy…..

Wife: Sorry, you can’t have candy today.

Daughter: (After a while, stops crying and abandons the idea). Most probably thinks to herself, “I don’t want candy anyway.”

This is a perfect example of the natural progression of what happens to a person when they face failure after failure en route to their goal, and unless you’re aware of it and know how to address it, success becomes a lot more difficult.

We’ve all experienced failure. And we’ve all seen quotes on the order of “never give up” or “the only failure is to give up” etc. But it doesn’t leave you with a practical approach as to how to turn your failures into victories.

If you have ever given up on a goal and you feel bad about it, or you feel like a loser, let me assure you that you are NOT!

As we encounter more and more resistance, we experience different emotions. We also start withdrawing from our endeavor more and more as we become increasingly convinced by the external factors that we cannot possibly win.

How do we overcome this? Stay tuned for the next article, where we will go into the first part of the solution that we have used successfully to stay interested and to win!