How’s your year going so far? How are you getting on with any New Year’s Resolutions you made?! How many of your goals have you reached so far?!

Don’t worry if it’s not going quite to plan – you’re not alone. Here are some thoughts on ‘making it happen’ – whatever IT may be!

“Stop sitting there with your hands folded looking on doing nothing. Get into action and live this full and glorious life NOW. You have to do it.”

Eileen Caddy

You are the only person who can make things happen for yourself. Your manager, parents, siblings, children or best friend can’t fix it all for you. It’s your life – to be lived how you want it. Rather than focusing on what hasn’t happened, or blaming yourself for not keeping your resolutions, let’s look at two areas that will help you to make something happen. They are dealing with failure or mistakes; and building on your successes.

Dealing with Failure and Mistakes

Failure is where you judge that something has an unsuccessful or disappointing outcome. A mistake is something you didn’t mean to happen, an unintentional error. Both can feel negative and uncomfortable and yet both can be a vital contributor to your success. There is a world of difference between saying to yourself “Oh dear, I didn’t mean that to happen and I am disappointed” and “I’ve failed” or even worse “I am a failure”.

 Mistakes are perfectly normal, everyone makes them, has slip-ups, blunders or mis-steps. People who are regarded as successful have usually made loads of mistakes. They have learned from them and had the determination to carry on – or know when to stop and change direction.

Never take a failure in one part of your life to be too discouraging. Such experiences can open doors to new and better positions. Breaking your New Year’s Resolution to go to the gym every day does not mean that you won’t get the next job you apply for!

Failure and mistakes:

• stretch you
• sensitise you in a positive way
• help you define boundaries or limits
• show people you aren’t afraid of taking risks
• can move you forward, backwards or sideways
• may increase your choices of what you do next
• challenge you and make you stronger
• teach you about creativity and timing
• give you practice
• don’t define you
• provide opportunities to rethink
• make you human
• don’t stop you being super-woman
• are experienced by everyone.

For people who view their situation and the world positively, failure can bring out greater determination which, combined with their positive attitude, creates a winning combination.

Learning from Your Failures and Mistakes

Think back to what you regard as failure or mistakes in your life and with the benefit of hindsight, consider what they taught you. Many people say that what appeared to be a setback at the time often turned out to be a positive turning point in their lives.

Take some time to answer these questions:

• How have you dealt with failure in the past?
• What worked well?
• What do you want to do differently in the future?

“Why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the work that mattered to me.”

J K Rowling

Another part of dealing with failure positively is to be ingenious in the way you overcome the blocks that you meet. Start by checking you’re using what’s available to you.

• Could you find a project or secondment to gain the new experience or skills you need?
• What can you take from what others have done in this situation?
• Is there funding like grants and scholarships which would get you new experience and contacts?
• Who can you ask for support, to make IT happen?

One of the important tenets of innovation is the “fail fast” philosophy. This encourages people to test ideas, try things out early and often, and to learn from their mistakes quickly. If you can deal with failure effectively and quickly move on to what comes next you avoid wasting your time, energy and resources, and it can accelerate your progress towards success. Try things out, work out what works for you and do more of it!

Building on Your Success

The second element of making it happen is building on the success you’ve had so far.

Success boosts your confidence, tells you you’ve got things right and gives you energy to keep going. It happens every day, speeds you up and is great for sharing with other people. Success can spur you on to do more – even when it could be more difficult.

Everyone has their own personal definition of success. What is yours? Spend a bit of time writing, fill a page with sentences that start with “Success is………”. Keep going until you run out of ideas.

Celebrate or Your Success

It’s too easy to skip this part, quickly tick it off, move on to the next thing on your demanding list, especially if celebrating success isn’t your usual approach. If that’s the case, there’s all the more reason to consider doing it!

Celebrating is a very good way to show that you value yourself. Celebration is fun, gives you energy and reinforces your self-esteem. It doesn’t need to need cost anything – a walk with friends or a soak in the bath are both free. Celebrations can be big or small; they can even be a secret!

What will you do to celebrate your next achievement? Or even to celebrate those you already had this week or this month or this year? Do let me know in the comments. If you’d like to have a chat about goals and celebrations, call me on +44 07977 072 760 or email me and we can arrange a coaching call.