First Step of How to Deal With Failure

I was recently presented with a 'tweet that read: "Anyone reading or who has read Go for No! will know that failure is an important part of success. The question is how to deal with it..."

Great question. Here is Step One: Stay Calm.

If you are like most people, you've been taught and trained to live in a world where failure is abhorred. It is unfortunate that as adults, the 'ego' is wrapped up into how we are perceived by others and so failure is not appreciated nor sought.  Oh sure, we'll quote J.K. Rowling and Richard Branson - both who espouse the value of failure but we seem to allow their wise words wash off our back like a duck in water. (Perhaps deep inside we think, 'yeah but they are billionaires!' Has it ever ocurred to us that embracing failure is actually a reason for their success?)

The children of today are not fairing any better. It seems once encouraged to persist through learning to walk and tying a shoe, that they too are set upon with a philosophy of success via perfection. 'Positive Failure' author Alastair_Arnott argues that "avoiding failure is responsible for the huge lack in resilience we have seen in many adolescents in western society."

So how to start dealing with failure? First: Stay calm.  And come back for Step Two.