The dictionary defines failure as lack of success and we define failure as defeat. So why is it that highly successful people are the ones who have failed the most? The answer is quite simple, the highly successful people replace the word "failure" with feedback and rise above their criticism, instead of taking it as defeat.
All of us have certain aspirations and all of us set goals which we wish to achieve in a period of time but, according to science, only 8 % of us actually achieve that goal. Let me prove this by a hypothetical yet a very practical life graph of Tom. Tom wants to open his own pizza place and he aims for the best pizza place in the city.
With the financial help from his friends and family at an early stage, he leases a decent spot and opens up his restaurant after attaining the license from the authorities. He spends some money on advertising and people start coming in. He initially enjoyed the good crowd but after a while, he started losing his customers instead of gaining their loyalty.
This setback did demotivate him for a while but he soon came up with an idea. The idea was, instead of spending all his last capital on advertising, he spent his time taking feedbacks from his customers. He made a feedback form that he personally gave to all his customers to fill after their meal.
Upon reviewing the feedback, he realized that he had to improve his recipe and the quality of the dough. Tom got the answer where he was going wrong and spent a major portion of the leftover capital on hiring experts to improve the food quality and spent the leftover amount on rebranding. The crowd started to come in, and this time instead of dropping off, many of them came repeatedly.
Tom enjoyed his good fortune for a while till the other pizza place opened up right opposite to his place. Soon that place started competing with Tom and started stealing his customers. This setback again hit Tom hard as he had his house mortgage to pay along with his kids' tuition fees.
So Tom himself goes to that other place. Upon ordering the food, he finds out that the quality of the pizza was more or less similar to what he was offering but the menu has more variety and the place has a better ambiance. Tom realizes the changes he had to make and upon taking a business loan, Tom not only included other types of pizzas, and side dishes on the menu, he also improved his interiors to provide a better ambiance.
Soon, Tom started getting the crowd back. Some of the loyal customers of his opposite place also started visiting Tom's Pizzeria. Like this, many challenges came over Tom's way but he overcame all of them by using the feedback approach and one day, Tom's Pizzeria became the best pizzeria in the city.
Upon achieving his goal, Tom entered that elite 8% club. If we look at the graph carefully, we will see that Tom's journey towards achieving his goal was never a straight line. It was filled with ups and downs.
However, if you see more carefully, you will realize that by using the feedback approach, Tom's setback at any given time was never as low as his previous setback, whereas his success was always higher than his previous success. We all have a similar graph, but most of us give up after the first couple of setbacks. We lose our motivation.
We consider those setbacks as our failure and consider it as a defeat rather than asking for feedback. It is very important to replace failure with feedback. This way you will eliminate all the negative connotations that are linked with failure.
Feedback encourages constructive thinking and has a positive impact on creativity. Failure is a concept that creates negativity. It breeds pessimistic thinking.
The feelings of inadequacy and discouragement that accompany the belief that you are not measuring up discourage and de-motivate further efforts. When you eliminate the concept of failure and replace it with the idea of getting feedback the whole focus shifts. Feedback puts attention on learning what works and doesn’t work.
This information allows the person to take risks and seek different solutions. Feedback allows for flexibility. When you recognize something is not working you take another approach.
You let go of ‘Ill-formed’ language when you discard the word ‘Failure’. The effect of replacing one word potentially changes your feelings and for those who are self-aware your internal experience. Whether you’re an author, an entrepreneur or a musician, the road to success is often paved with rejection and setback.
The difference between those who succeed and those fail comes down to whether or not they choose to rise above the criticism and look for feedback to improve upon. Do comment below what you think of replacing failure with feedback and share your personal stories on how you overcame certain setbacks so that others can be inspired. Also, do subscribe to us for such weekly videos.
