Middle Years 

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill

Over the long weekend, I noticed an interesting Twitter post by Karen Reivich (who is a leading Resiliency researcher) referring to a New York Times article by Oset Babur “Talking about Failure is Critical for Growth”. Babur says in the article that we often prefer to internally process failure but it is better to have conversations about it. Failures ‘humanise’ us and make us more approachable and relate more with others.

Social media allows people to portray “polished though unrealistic lives” and allows people to create an image of perfection, and this can be harmful.

In job interviews, they are starting to ask people how they failed and how they overcame the challenges. Interesting, the people that couldn’t discuss their failures weren’t recommended for the job.

Yes, failure is embarrassing and uncomfortable but we need to have a culture that is open to discussing failure. Do you talk about failure? Do you encourage your children to talk about failure? Do you talk about failure during the event or afterwards?

In a nutshell, as we recover from failure, we need to:

Maintain a flexible and positive mindset. ...

Ask for help. ...

Remind yourself why it's important. ...

Take time to recover and start over. ...

Give yourself a break.

"Don't be afraid to fail. Don't waste energy trying to cover up failure. Learn from your failures and go on to the next challenge. It's OK to fail. If you're not failing, you're not growing." H. Stanley Judd

Julia Winter Cooke