How do you respond to bad feedback? Do you take it personally and refuse to work on your mistakes? We hope that the answer to these two questions is “no.” Learning to own up to your mistakes and failures will unveil a whole new world of potential and success for you.

Instead of seeing failure as something to be quickly ignored and moved past, leaving the failed project behind, you should consider failure and mistakes as a new starting point for doing things more carefully and efficiently.

When you succeed, you demand credit for it, and rightly so. But when you fail, do you always feel other people and factors are to blame? Changing your view on mistakes can actually be a success-promoting opportunity. Here’s why you should own up to, and own, your failures:

Failure emphasizes your weak points

No one likes being told they’re imperfect, but it happens. When your mistakes are pointed out, the best you can do is admit you’re wrong and see how you can remedy the situation.

It’s excruciatingly hard, but once you get into the habit, you will realize that sometimes it’s only through failure that you can move forward. Success can make you complacent; failure serves to remind you to keep trying.

Failure brings success

What people afraid of failure do? They stay the same, they rarely move forward, and they’re more likely to deteriorate in skills and competencies.

When the fear of failure dominates, you think, “It won’t work, I have no entrepreneurial skills to build this start-up.”

When you embrace failure, you are open to new things and challenges, and say instead, “It doesn’t matter if I fail, I will learn the skills and know how to do it better the next time around.”

Failure is not a cul-de-sac but an open road. You can see failure as the A/B testing of what works and what doesn’t, but never a reason to give up.

Advance through mistakes

People who fail to grasp the importance of failure seek to suppress and forget every mistake they’ve ever made.

Do the opposite.

Keep track of your mistakes, and note when and why they happen. Learn to identify fear triggers that prevent you from trying new things and taking risks.

Create a database of all the precious lessons you’ve learned simply by making mistakes.

Lastly, consider yourself lucky. Those who always get it right the first time don’t really know their weaknesses and are more prone to simply give up when faced with their first big failure.

But not you. You’ve made mistakes and know how to handle and use failure to your advantage!

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