10 Ways To Avoid Failure

I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

We often spend so much time to think about how to succeed that we forget to think about how to fail. But knowing how to fail is just as important as knowing how to succeed because we can then learn about what NOT to do. It’s dangerous to fix our eyes on the destination without being aware of the pitfalls along the way. We may run fast to our destination only to find ourselves trapped in the pitfalls at the end.

Knowing how to avoid this pitfall is a useful weapon in your “how to succeed” arsenal. Here Are 10 tips to avoid failure.

1. Identify your strengths to know your audience

First of all, you should identify what your strengths are. By identifying your strengths, you will know what kind of value you can provide and consequently what kind of people you should target.

2. Recognize your personal characteristics to know your audience

You are more likely to attract people who have similar characteristics as you. People who share similar interests, background, or point of view are more likely to respond well to you. By recognizing your personal characteristics, you will get a better idea about who are the right people to target.

3. Accept that you can’t please everybody

Of course, you should first try to target the right audience as described in point 1 and 2 above. But even if you do that, you still can’t please everybody. No matter how hard you try, there are always people who oppose you. Accepting this possibility will ease the burden and make the process much easier for you.

4. State your position in a way that is not ambiguous

You should state your position clearly without being ambiguous. One of the danger of trying to please everybody is polishing your position in such a way that it is acceptable to everyone. Most likely you can only do that through ambiguous message for which different persons have different interpretations. At the end it will do you more harm than good.

5. Keep an open mind

Before discarding other people’s opinions as “coming from the wrong people”, you should have an open mind to seek truth in their opinions. While it is wrong to try to please everybody, it’s equally wrong to just discard opinions we don’t agree with. Try to find something you can learn from them. Maybe it’s you who need to change.

6. Be polite but firm to your opposition

After exercising an open mind and still can’t find a solution, it’s time to be firm about your position. Don’t try to please the wrong person. If you do so, you may compromise your principles. State clearly to her that though you appreciate her opinion, yours is different.

7. Let the rejection go from your mind

After you face rejection, sometimes you still have it left in your mind. You may still think about it and feel bad about it. Doing so will just decrease your happiness and in turn your performance. So let the rejection go from your mind. Forget it. Say goodbye, close the door, and move on.

8. Review what your failure has taught you.

There are always things to take away from a failure, to inform your future direction. It might also be the case that you have made the failure seem worse than it is; partial failure is also partial success and if you can draw out what was successful and build on that, the sense of having failed lessens.

9. Focus on trying again.

Dale Carnegie once said that it was essential to “develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” Persistence is the source of success for the majority of people on this planet. Overnight successes are rare; they are usually people who have been trying and failing and trying again many times over. Successful ad man Siimon Reynolds believes that lack of persistence is a major reason as to why people fail; giving up too soon means that you’ll never know whether what you’re seeking to do or be was achievable and he says that this is the case for “the majority of people”

10. Grow

Popular motivational coach Anthony Robbins says that we don’t just grow for ourselves – we grow so that we can contribute well beyond ourselves.This is an important thing to remember when you’re proceeding through failures. Your experiences are available for others to learn from if you’re willing to share them, as well as being willing to share with others how you pushed beyond failure into a more fruitful and fulfilling outcome, and even what happened when you couldn’t overcome the failure. This helps everyone become more understanding and accepting of the role of failure in success-driven societies.