No one likes facing their personal failures or times they’ve fallen short. Most of us, in fact, know someone who seems utterly incapable of doing either. But according to an article by Fast Company, this might be an essential step to achieving success. Though this may sound odd, continue reading. There’s plenty of reason to think that a failure to confront your failures is what’s keeping you from succeeding.
Ignoring Failures Means Repeating Them
The first reason for confronting your failures is because that’s the only way to learn from them. By its nature, failing means you did something wrong or didn’t do something you should have. If you don’t own these errors and really get to know them, you’re bound to meet them again and again down the line.
Confrontation Means Letting Go
When it comes to people, confrontation can often start the path toward something far worse. But, when it comes to your failures, confronting them can have very real psychological benefits. It means letting go of guilt and rationalization. It frees you from having to continuously cover them up in the future.
Companies Can Benefit Too
There’s reason to believe companies can also gain unique benefits from admitting to their past defeats. People inherently know that no company is perfect. So, hearing a company fess up that they have failed and actually illustrating examples can go a long way in building trust.
A good example of this is a venture capital firm called Bessemer Venture Partners. The firm has been in business for more than a century. In that time, they have racked up some pretty impressive investments. They’ve also missed out on opportunities like FedEx, PayPal, and even Google. But highlighting these mistakes on their website doesn’t seem to hurt their business. Instead, it shows customers how honest they are and that they’re so confident in their abilities that they can share otherwise embarrassing information.
Build a Failure Resume
You might be surprised to find out that you’re not alone when it comes to falling short at times. All over, there is a culture cropping up of people and companies publicly owning their past mistakes. Silicon Valley is even seeing the rise of Failure conferences. One method consistent to these groups is called a failure résumé. A person or company goes through their past and makes a detailed list of their biggest defeats and failures. While this can feel extremely unnatural and even be a bit painful to do, the upshot is that you walk away in a better position to own your future and do a better job.
No one likes dealing with the fact that they have fallen short in the past. This doesn’t make that fact any less true. However, by not confronting it, we’re doomed to let failure continue in our lives. This happens by crippling us emotionally and robbing us of the lessons we’d otherwise learn. Companies also lose the benefit of humanizing themselves to customers. So, if you want to see more success down the road for you and your company, start by putting your failure résumé together today.
Source:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3022463/how-to-get-a-front-row-seat-to-the-future-of-marketing
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