People who take risks sometimes experience failure. Everyone has experienced setbacks and disappointments in their lives. Whether these are business or personal difficulties, the process of getting back on your feet can be difficult. Nate Armstrong of Home Invest shares concrete steps to restore your confidence and help you move forward in life.
Process Your Emotions
While it may be tempting to bury your emotional reaction to a setback, it’s important to let these feelings out. If you deny them, you will have a bigger problem in the future. Take the time to honor your feelings. This may be difficult for Type A personalities, but it is worth the effort. If you need to vent, find a trusted friend or vent it on paper. It is probably best to avoid venting to a coworker if the problem happened at the office. This person may be too invested in your problem to be helpful.
While you are processing your emotions, take care not to revert to bitterness. Internalizing this emotion can cause you to react poorly in the future and to anticipate trouble where there is none.
Look at the Bigger Picture
Take the time to ask yourself if your problem will be important in a week, in a month, or in a year. This can help you put things into perspective. Try to take a high-level view of your difficulties and decide whether they are worth the emotional investment. You may find that your problem is not as earth-shattering as you thought. If you have experienced a job loss or investment failure, it is understandable that it will take you longer to recover.
Worry About What You Can Control
Many business people worry about everything, from the small details of their business to the overall state of the economy. It’s impossible to move forward with strength when you are continually bogged down by anxiety. It is wiser to confine your worry to conditions you can control. You may not be able to change the tax code, for example, but you can make sure that your return is processed completely and on time.
Be Objective
After you have processed your feelings, take a hard look at your failure and analyze how it happened. Get some perspective on your setbacks. This can be a painful part of the process, as you examine your shortcomings in handling the situation. If you made a poor investment, for example, consider why you thought it was a good idea. You may be able to pinpoint where you went wrong. Complete understanding of why your project failed will help you avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Try Again
The most important step in dealing with failure is to try again. Use what you have learned and step back into the fray. If you don’t try again, your problem has beaten you. Don’t let failure ruin your life. Focus on what you have to offer the world and be ready to take risks. You will gain resilience from this experience, and you will be a better person in the future.
Evaluate Periodically
In six months and again in a year after your setbacks, think about what you learned from failure. You have found new information about yourself, and you can take it with you into the future.
Nate Armstrong is the co-founder and Investor Relations Chair for Home Invest. Based in Chicago, his company is concerned with helping investors enter the real estate market. The company provides a simple way for investors to take advantage of the real estate market without the problems of dealing with construction or building management. With a background in property management, realty, and entrepreneurship, he has an insider view of the industry.
