4 Steps To Help You Learn From Adversity and Failure

I was on the ice this week, getting in a little early morning practice on my hockey technique. There were a few of us out there, each doing our own thing.

One young man caught my attention. He was skating repeatedly up and down the ice, working on how to turn around and skate backwards. Skating backwards was not his failure, but the act of turning around put him on his well-padded backside again and again.

It was two years ago that I first learned how to ice skate. In other words, two years ago I was that guy. It made me smile – not to see his failure but to recount how far I’ve come.

I also had to smile at the very thought of just how many times I’ve experienced failure along the way. It would have been fun to count my failures from the beginning but I can only guess now. The number would be well over 1,000 times in the past two years.

And each failure was a lesson waiting to happen…if I was willing to learn…

“Oh, man – I’m not low enough on that pivot.”

“I need to kick that skate back further on the back step.”

“I need more weight on my inside blade during that turn.”

Failure equals learning…but only if you let it. That takes a real commitment on your part.

Break your response to failure down into four steps:

Step 1: Fail. You must. Non-negotiable and inevitable.

Step 2: Frustration. It’s okay – this can give you energy for what happens next.

Step 3: Find. Identify what happened, and what needs to change.

Step 4: Fix. Try it again, but do it better.

You might find that the first run through of those four steps does not solve the problem. No worries, because when it doesn’t work you’ll get failure. That is, you’ll be back on step one. Just follow it through and do it again.

When you learn to embrace failure, everything changes. Everything.

On that particular morning on the ice I was working on how to stop with my back foot. That probably means nothing to you, but trust me – it ain’t easy.

I probably fell ten times in 15 minutes.

Yes!