Failing Forward: Turning Setbacks into Success

Fear of failure holds most of us back from reaching our potential, but what if we've been looking at failure all wrong? In this transformative exploration of "failing forward," we challenge the deeply ingrained belief that failure represents the end of the road rather than a necessary part of the journey toward success.

We dive into the fascinating reasons behind our aversion to failure, examining both our evolutionary hardwiring and the unintentional conditioning from educational systems that teach us to avoid failure at all costs. Through cognitive biases like pain avoidance, binary thinking, and loss aversion, we develop patterns that limit our willingness to take risks - even when the potential benefits far outweigh the potential losses.

The path forward requires embracing a growth mindset, where abilities are viewed as developable rather than fixed. By extracting valuable lessons from each setback and building resilience through continued action, failure becomes not just acceptable but essential to meaningful progress. We explore inspiring examples from innovators like Thomas Edison, who famously found "10,000 ways that don't work" before succeeding, and entrepreneurs like Sarah Blakely, who transformed countless rejections into stepping stones toward building her empire. Perhaps most powerfully, we examine how we all once mastered the art of failing forward as babies learning to walk - failing hundreds of times daily without becoming discouraged.

Ready to transform your relationship with failure? Try our actionable strategies: take imperfect action rather than remaining paralyzed by analysis, reflect regularly on lessons learned, set smaller achievable goals, build a supportive network, and practice self-compassion through the process. Your failures aren't the opposite of success - they're the building blocks that make success possible. Subscribe now and start your journey toward embracing failure as a catalyst for personal growth and achievement.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Sage Solutions Podcast, where we talk
about all things personalgrowth, personal development and
becoming your best self.
My name is David Sage and I ama self-worth and confidence
coach with Sage CoachingSolutions.
Today, we're going deep into atopic that often gives us pause

(00:26):
failure.
More importantly, we'll discusshow facing failure head-on and
embracing it can be a catalystfor success.
In this episode, we explore theconcept of failing forward, the
idea that each misstep isn't asetback but an essential step

(00:47):
towards growth.
So let's take that leap offaith together.
But before we get into it, ourgoal with this podcast is to
share free, helpful tools withyou and anyone you know who is
looking to improve their life.
So take action, subscribe andshare this podcast with them.

(01:13):
Most of us have a conditionedresponse to the word failure.
In our society, failure isoften seen as the end of the
road, worst outcome, a verdictof inadequacy.
But what if I told you thatfailure is often a good thing,
that failure can be a powerfulteacher?
Over the next few minutes, wewill reframe failure from being

(01:39):
the worst of the worst to anecessary part of the journey
towards innovation, wisdom andpersonal growth.
The concept of failing forwardinvolves viewing failure not as
a permanent flaw, but as aseries of experiments on the
road to success.
Every time you fail, you learnsomething new, like a method

(02:05):
that doesn't work, or a newangle to try, or even a better
understanding of what you trulyvalue.
This is why I say action equalssuccess and all outcomes are
just learning.
Think about the greatestinventors, entrepreneurs and
leaders.
They didn't arrive at theirsuccess by avoiding failure.

(02:27):
They succeeded by leaning intofailure, by taking risks and by
learning from every misstep.
Now, if this whole concept justseems uncomfortable, there's a
reason for that.
We are both hardwired andconditioned to avoid failure.

(02:48):
Evolutionary psychology showsone of the reasons we fear
failure so much is becausefailure could have meant life
and death in the past.
Failure to get away fromsomething that was trying to
chase and kill you, or failureto succeed in finding food could

(03:09):
mean that you get eaten orstarve to death, but that wasn't
strong enough to stop us fromtrying.
There's also a series ofcognitive biases that we have
built into our brains that helplead us towards avoiding failure
.
Number one we avoid pain andseek pleasure, and if you've

(03:31):
ever had an especially painfulfailure, that's going to
condition your brain to avoidfailure in the future, which is
why many of us choose to not try, in order to avoid the pain of
failing.
We also have the binary bias,which leads us to see things as
either fully a success or fullyfailure, and if you're not

(03:56):
succeeding then you must be afailure.
This also plays into the haloeffect, which means that once we
have failed, it's easy to seeourselves in our entirety as a
failure, at least in that momentand project that one experience
onto a trait, onto our entirebeing.

(04:17):
There's also loss aversion.
We don't want to do somethingif it risks us losing something
we already have.
This causes us to take lessrisks, even if the benefits
outweigh the risks, even if thebenefits outweigh the risks.
But the stronger reason whywe're so inclined to avoid

(04:37):
failure is actually becausewe've been conditioned that way
for years.
And I want to be clear.
I'm not trying to demonize theeducation system here.
I actually think that this iswholly unintentional and really
just a casualty of the currentsystem.
But when you take a test, whenyou take a class, you either
pass that class or you fail thatclass.

(04:59):
Failure is the worst thing youcan do.
Success is the only acceptableoption.
Now we want kids to succeed.
Heck, you want to succeed.
Generally speaking, it's betterto succeed at something than to
fail.
I'm not going to pretend thatthat's not true, but by having

(05:20):
everything be pass-fail, successor failure, and demonizing
failure, we've been repeatedlyconditioning ourselves over and
over and over, on every homeworkassignment, on every quiz, on
every test, to avoid failure atall costs.
This conditions us to only dothings if we're going to succeed

(05:43):
and to avoid failure at allcosts, for there's no benefit to
failing anything in school.
But once you get into the realworld where you're not forced to
try, then you avoid failure bynot doing it.
So what we're looking to dohere today is reprogram our

(06:03):
brains to view failure as astepping stone to fail forward
and see that failure is notnecessarily a bad thing and that
by embracing failure you willtake more action.
I first heard the term failingforward from renowned leadership
expert John C Maxwell and readabout it in his book titled

(06:27):
Failing Forward.
So let's break down thismindset.
Behind failing forward First,we embrace a growth mindset.
Renowned psychologist Dr CarolDweck's work on the growth
mindset clearly shows thatindividuals who see their
abilities as improvable are morelikely to succeed.

(06:50):
When you experience setbacks,shifting from a fixed mindset to
a growth mindset can transformthose failures into inevitable
lessons.
As Anna said on a previousepisode, embrace the power of
yet I am not good at this.
Yet Instead of thinking I amnot good enough, you can begin

(07:13):
to ask what can I learn fromthis?
These shifts may not happenovernight.
It's a practice, a commitmentto self-compassion and
continuous improvement, but overtime it will have a compound
effect on your life life.

(07:38):
Second, learn to extract thelesson.
Every failure carries a lesson.
When things don't work out asexpected, pause and analyze.
Ask yourself what assumptionsled me astray.
Were there warning signs Ioverlooked?
How can I adjust my approachmoving forward?
This practice is not aboutself-blaming, but about
constructive reflection.
A mistake is simply data,information about the reality of

(08:02):
your approach, information thatwe can use to do better next
time.
Third, develop resilience.
Resilience is built throughadversity.
The more you confrontchallenges, the stronger you
become emotionally and mentally.
Each instance of failure is arehearsal for future success,

(08:25):
even when the outcome isn't whatyou hoped for.
Every experience is a trainingground for perseverance.
Let's talk about some real-lifeexamples, like Thomas Edison
when asked about his manyfailures while he was inventing
the light bulb.
Edison famously said I have notfailed, I've just found 10,000

(08:48):
ways that don't work.
This quote perfectly capturesthe spirit of failing forward.
Every experiment that doesn'tproduce the desired outcome is
simply progress, and if nothingelse contributes to the process
of elimination.
Edison's relentlessdetermination didn't just lead

(09:11):
to a successful invention itrevolutionized modern society.
Another inspiring story is thatof the renowned entrepreneur
Sarah Blakely, the founder ofSpanx.
Early on, she encounteredcountless rejections and
missteps, but by reframing herfailures as learning
opportunities, she ultimatelyturned them into stepping stones

(09:34):
that built her multi-milliondollar enterprise.
Her story reinforces the ideathat perceived failures can
become platforms for futurebreakthroughs if we allow
ourselves to learn and adapt.
But let's talk about an evenmore relatable example, one that
, with very few exceptions,everyone listening to this will

(09:57):
have done themselves.
You and I were both masters ofembracing failure at one point
in our lives.
In fact, every human with thephysical capabilities to do so
has went through this experience.
Or we failed thousands of times, hundreds of times a day, until

(10:22):
we finally succeeded once.
That's right.
All of us were babies, and as ababy we had to learn how to
stand.
And as a baby we had to learnhow to stand and then,
eventually, how to walk and takeour first steps.
And let me tell you, you failedcontinuously, over and over and

(10:44):
, over and over and over.
But you were completely unfazed, and so was I.
We were masters of takingaction and embracing failure and
understanding that it was apart of the process.
How many babies do you knowthat tried once or twice and
just said, eh guess, walkingisn't for me.

(11:04):
We just have to harvest andembrace this mindset that we had
as children of who cares howmany times I try?
I want to do the thing andapply it to our lives now as
adults.
Action equals success andoutcomes are just learning.
Now that we understand thetheoretical framework and some

(11:28):
of these inspirational examples,let's talk about actionable
strategies.
How can you and I, asindividuals striving for growth,
learn to embrace failure?
First, take action.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1,.
Go, stop thinking and startdoing.

(11:50):
No more paralysis byoveranalysis.
Action cures everything.
Commit yourself to takingimperfect action and then, when
failure does happen, reflectregularly.
Dedicate time at the end of eachweek to reflect both on your
successes and your failures.
To reflect both on yoursuccesses and your failures,

(12:14):
because outcomes are justlearning.
Ask what can I learn from thisweek's challenges?
Set smaller, achievable goals.
Sometimes failures loom becausewe set these huge,
insurmountable targets.
Break your goals into smaller,simple, manageable steps and

(12:34):
celebrate the small victoriesalong the way.
Surround yourself with support.
Build a network of friends,family, mentors or colleagues
who not only celebrate yourachievements but also help you
see the value in your failuresand practice self-compassion.

(12:54):
Treat yourself with thekindness you would offer a
friend.
Acknowledge that mistakes are anatural part of growth and that
each setback is temporary, alesson rather than a life
sentence.
Implementing these practicescan help create an environment
where failure is not feared, butseen as a necessary part of the

(13:17):
creative and success processes.
Well, thanks for joining me ontoday's journey through the
landscape of failure and success.
Every failure is not aroadblock but a stepping stone
on your path to personaldevelopment.
Embrace your failures, learnfrom them and, most importantly,

(13:38):
keep moving forward.
Commit to imperfect action,because avoiding failure is
avoiding success, and rememberyou are enough and you deserve
to fill up your inner cup withhappiness, confidence and

(14:02):
self-compassion.
Thank you for listening to theSage Solutions Podcast.
Your time is valuable and I'mso glad that you choose to learn
and grow here with me.
If you haven't already, don'tforget to subscribe so you don't

(14:22):
miss out on more sage advice.
One last thing the legallanguage.
This podcast is for educationaland informational purposes only
.
This podcast is for educationaland informational purposes only
.
No coaching client relationshipis formed.
It is not intended as asubstitute for the personalized

(14:52):
advice of a physician,professional coach,
psychotherapist or otherqualified professional.