Not over till you give up

The famous salt march, defying the law of the British Raj to buy salt from the government, was described “a campaign of failure.” Its architect was ridiculed and arrested several times in the independence saga of India.

He faced failures in business, had a nervous breakdown and was defeated in 8 elections.
A teacher told him he was “too stupid to learn anything” and that he should go into a field where he “might succeed by virtue of his pleasant personality.”
He was unable to speak much until he was 4 years old and his teacher said he would never amount to much.

They were rejected by Decca Recording Studios who said, “We don’t like their sound…they have no future in show business.”

He was fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination and having no original ideas.
She was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she wasn’t fit for television.

At the age of 30, he was left devastated and depressed after being unceremoniously removed from the company he started.

His first book was rejected by 27 publishers. After being eliminated from his high school basketball team, he went home, locked himself in his room and cried.

As an 11-year-old, he was removed from his team after being diagnosed with a growth hormone deficiency which made him smaller in stature than most kids his age.

If Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, The Beatles, Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Dr Seuss, Michael Jordan and Lionel Messi had one thing in common, it was that they faced several failures en route to stardom and success.

What does all this say about success, or more importantly, about failure? Simply this — failures and disappointments are commonplace in life; something that happens in monotonous regularity to anyone and everyone. We cannot avoid them; we cannot ignore them; we cannot run away from them. At the least, we can expect them and at the best, we can turn them around. And in between we can unearth from them many hidden life lessons, pertinent instructions, and lasting insights; all of which have the power to fortify and make us resilient enough to help us eventually succeed. 

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed,” confirms the basketball pro, Michael Jordan, emphasising the truth that failure is the most common precedent to success. But then, how do we rise after we have bitten the dust? As Pablo Picasso remarked, “We are all born artists, the challenge is how to remain an artist.” Though an arduous task, paying heed to some simple yet, strategic steps ascribed by experts and described below can help us get up after a failure and soar high again.

Damage control

The very first step in bouncing back is to take control of oneself and the situation, so that further damage can be prevented.  For instance, if an entrepreneur sees only falling revenues there is no point in investing further into the business. It would be wise to temporarily shelve all ideas to expand the business and to concentrate on breaking even in the current scenario. Sometimes, this may even call for some distancing from the failure to a gain wider perspective and better understanding. The ‘flight’ strategy could be of use here. Sleeping on the failure, talking to a friend, getting away for a weekend and the like are all ways to get away momentarily from the failure that is hurting. Getting out of the environment that is causing the failure is the first-aid for a successful comeback.
Seek answers

After this short hibernation and withdrawal, it is easier to face the truth. Identify the cause of the defeat, disaster or downfall in a cool frame of mind. Get to the bottom of the problem and apply the questions, ‘what, who, why, where and how’ to the failure staring in your face.

Get tangible answers to the questions. Superficial practices such as blaming luck, passing the buck, and finding alibis and scapegoats should be thrown out of the proverbial window. Real answers to real failures are the only way to face the reality and reverse the adverse situation.

Learn your lessons

The answers will lead to insightful lessons. It is said that the games we lose are filled with lessons that will help us avoid similar mistakes in the future. “I recommend that you all get fired, it’s a great learning experience,” said Anna Wintour, the British editor-in-chief of American Vogue (a position she has held since 1988). In 2013, she was elevated to the post of artistic director for Condé Nast, Vogue’s publisher and has become a renowned personality in the fashion world, acclaimed for her proclivity for fashion trends and her backing for younger designers. It is interesting to note that she had got fired when she worked for Harper Bazaar, the popular American women’s fashion magazine.

Consider also the case of J K Rowling, the celebrated author of the Harry Potter series. She was fired from her job as a secretary because her boss thought that she spent too much time daydreaming about book ideas. Clearly, that sacking, as well as the daydreaming, served her very well down the road to becoming one of the most distinguished authors of the 21st century. Lessons from failures are, indeed, stepping stones on which to rise up and move on, with greater confidence and vigour.

Become resilient

Becoming resilient is an important requisite for bouncing back from defeats. Through resilience current defeats can be converted into future victories, as every failure has in it the seed of resilience ingrained deep within. When sown and nurtured, this seed will sprout into a mighty tree shadowing the human spirit with the staying power to hang in there and to bounce back. In his bestselling book The Resiliency Advantage, the late Al Siebert writes, “Highly resilient people expect to bounce back and feel confident that they will. They have a knack for creating good luck out of circumstances that many others see as bad luck.”

Gun for small victories

The next step in the pyramid is to start focusing on getting small victories in the immediate future. Such victories, even if little, will remove the “failure mindset” and introduce fresh confidence and energy. Gradually, the small victories need to be synergised into larger ones. Plan B and Plan C should compulsorily supplement Plan A. This completes the whole process of bouncing back. No doubt, the cycle of failure and
success is bound to wheel around as long as anything worthwhile is being experimented. Neither failure nor success is final.