7 Steps To Fail Forward Successfully

How do you move forward after failure? I love to use the term 'fail forward' It comes from a quote I read 10 years ago or more saying 'Fail again. Fail forward. Fail better.' The way I interpreted this is that failure is part of the learning process and each time we fail we become a little bit better at whatever it is we failed. A gym program, maintaining weight loss, healthy eating, study, property investment, business ventures. Failure is inevitable, progress is a choice. As long as we learn a lesson or two, we progress as next time we attempt to succeed, we implement the lessons and "Fail forward. Fail better". The key to success is to try one more time. Rest, recalibrate, understand and integrate your failures then go again. This time with a little more expeirnce and a little wiser.

At the gym when lifting weights, each time I train to failure, I get grumpy then I smile. I am proud of myself. It wasn't always like that. There was a time in my life I felt embarrassed, less than, weak. Until I saw it as a necessity and started chasing the failure. The sooner I fail, the sooner I grow. This is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. There was a time in my life I too felt stuck for a while with fixed mindset thinking I would never succeed, or acquire the things I want.

It is important to note that just like at the gym, even the failure takes time. It's called progressive overload and it prevents major injuries. With rest and recovery, proper nourishment, I can fail better next time with more weight on the bar. With better form. With less rest time between sets. There are different ways we can 'fail forward'. How do we successfully fail forward after Heartbreak? Grief? Business losses? The same way, we fail forward.

7 Steps To Fail Forward Successfully:

STEP 1: Self-Care First (address the MESS)

Movement - the most effective way to help e-motions move through the emotional cycle and not get stuck in the body's organs. Dance, walk, stepper, gym. Ever noticed on Instagram my training regime taper up/down. When Kathy O is spending more time on the stepper and running, she is likely processing some heavy losses and failures.

Expression - "Take your broken heart and turn it into art". I write and speak. I write in my phone notes or on Instagram whilst on the stepper, I write in my journal, I write to a trusted friend who can hold space, I write e-newsletters and blog posts. I book in podcasts and speak about my experience, what I have learnt and where it fits within personal mastery.

Support - from people with more experience and credentials than me, people already living the life I strive to create, solidly. Most recently I have struggled in relationships, so the people I sought advice from are those with proven healthy relational patterns. They are the embodiment of what I want for myself. Who do you look up to?

Sleep - The limbic brain processes our emotional experiences through REM sleep whilst deep sleep helps the physical body restore. Sleep is the pillar crucial for the development of new neural pathways, new patterns of health, wealth and relationships. Laying down new norms. During times of failure and lessons, I focus on my sleep for emotional and physical benefits. I will increase sleep from my usual 7.5 to 9 hours. There will be days I get 10 - 12 hours of sleep. Integration requires rest and recovery.

STEP 2: Fix Your Focus

Focus on what you can control. Come back to the present moment. I can’t right my wrong. What’s done is done. Sometimes my apology may never be received and I may never be forgiven. What’s the next best thing I can do? Well, if I can’t show them I know what I did, I can show myself. I can humble myself and accept the consequences of my actions. Rather than making it more about me with excuses, why, how… Just be quiet Kathy, accept you messed up. Admitting and accepting I’ve failed. Giving myself permission to be human. Taking ownership, accountability and responsibility for my behaviours. Remind myself of what matters most to me here, the long term vision.

What’s the next best thing I can do now to move towards my long term vision?

STEP 3: Embrace All Emotions; shame, guilt, embarrassment, grief, sadness, apathy, anger, fear, disappointment.

These are heavy emotions. Often times I find myself sitting with them for a bit then running away to my intellect. Some things are not meant to be faced head on. Some players need to be benched until ready. Part of my identity is to take action but sitting with the pain is something I’m still learning to do. It can be particularly difficult when you have a gigantic capacity to feel. Remember, this too shall pass. Emotions are like tunnels. They have a beginning, a middle and an end.

STEP 4: Find Forgiveness through Gratitude

I have so much gratitude for what is revealed about me and others from my failures. This is sometimes tough and can take a bit of time. Let it. Slowly, gently find the compassion and courage to forgive others and yourself.

STEP 5: Find the Lesson

Go actively looking for the lessons from the failure so that they can be implemented when you 'fail better'. Have curiosity about the failure, what happened and how? What led to it? If it could have been prevented it would have. Accept you did your best. What will you do differently next time? What has changed within you as a result of this experience? This is growth.

Give the pain purpose to turn it into power.

Turn your struggles into strengths.

STEP 6: Embody the Lesson

Repetition is the mother of mastery. However, I want to highlight, sometimes the past needs to be deleted first before we can lay new foundations. I kept my hurt filled journal. I knew there would be a day I would want burn it, I just didn’t know how or why. When I failed, I knew it was time to let go.

Intellectually you may know where you went wrong, embodying the lesson is a feeling. You become a new version of yourself. This sometimes requires letting go of a previous version of yourself. A version of yourself that did things differently. To become who you want to be, you need to let go of who you were and are. There is grief in this too. I have been a thousand women, and I keep evolving. Moving on past the breast implants was my biggest turning point. Moving on past my emotionally imature behaviours was hard. Until I let go of the behaviours that no longer serve me, I can not welcome that which I desire most.

STEP 7: Take Action; Create Change

Only when you are ready, cultivate the courage to do something differently. Test your new lessons and your new self. Even if this is the same person with a different face, even if this is the same scenario, even if it is exactly the same person, how am I different? What am I going to do differently? What books have I read, what events have I attended, what work have I done that I will now use.

The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge. It is one thing to know, and it is another to take action fully. Keyword: fully.

Tag & Share with your friends who would love it too! Sign up for my Free NuFit Wellness Newsletter and be the first to know it all. Attend my Wellness Workshops. Kathy O - Health & Wellness Strategist: Supporting people achieve optimal health, wealth and relationships with lifestyle principles through awareness, breath and choice. Embodiment Coach: Alignment is the method. Embodiment is the achievement. Authenticity is a byproduct. Be unstoppable. Be authentically you.

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