Failure is a Feeling Before it Becomes a Fact

Managing your career can often feel very binary, very all or nothing, and very much like a win or lose situation. I got the job, or I didn’t get the job. I got the promotion, or I didn’t get the promotion. I received an award, or I didn’t receive an award.

Careers are far too often defined and measured in terms of success and failure.

But, did you know that failure is a feeling long before it ever becomes a fact?

Those feelings of self-doubt and crisis of confidence can easily sabotage your success. Your mindset is a powerful tool and you get to choose your thoughts, both positive and negative.

It’s true that no one is ever going to win 100% of the time, but failure can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Do you go into a salary negotiation and think, “This is never going to work,”? Do you pitch a prospective new client and think, “I know they’re never going to sign the contract,”?

From sports to business, your thoughts control your actions, and your actions control the results. Elite athletes use physical trainers for their bodies and sports psychologists for their minds, and guess which muscle is stronger…your mind!

Success is never guaranteed, but without a positive and success-oriented mindset your chances of failure increase exponentially.

Here are 3 Ways to Master a Success Mindset:

Bust Out Your Brag Book

A Brag Book is one of the most effective ways to boost your confidence and jog your memory of all your previous successes and accomplishments. Everyone suffers from amnesia and that’s an ideal opportunity for the “failure feelings” to hijack your brain. Keep track of your Rockstar and peak performance moments and keep those negative notions at bay.

Practice Your Pose

Knowing that non-verbal clues and cues account for 93% of our overall communication, make sure your body language is not telegraphing your negative feelings. If you walk into a job interview feeling like a failure, then that is exactly what the hiring manager will see. Eye contact, a strong handshake, and a powerful presence when you walk into a room send a winning message of inner-strength, self-confidence and success.

Raise Your Resilience

Be like Mike. Michael Jordan missed 9,000 shots, lost 300 games and missed the game-winning basket 26 times in his career, but he never gave up. The expectation is not that you will succeed every time…the expectation is that you will keep trying and will learn from your missteps, from your mistakes, and from your missed opportunities. Strengthening your resilience muscle, and being able to bounce back after adversity, is critical to success.

Failure is inevitable, but how you handle it is completely up to you. And just because you “fail” at something does not mean you are a “failure.” Changing your mindset is the first step to success and to how you Woman UP!