Rethinking Failure in Today's Job Market

When you think of the last time you experienced a failure, what comes up for you?

Maybe you’ve sent out tons of resumes without a response.

You just found out you didn’t get the job.

You were ghosted after the last interview.

Your name is attached to that internal failure.

It feels like everything everywhere all at once.

Do you avoid thinking about it? Or maybe you get a sick feeling in your stomach. Or do you wear failure like a loose garment?

Depending on your response, you may be averse to failure.

Now you’re thinking, “Jill, everyone is averse to failure.”

It can be difficult to experience failure, especially in very public leadership positions.

I mean, isn’t everyone watching?

I get it; we often don’t work in environments that are accepting of failure beyond a John C. Maxwell ‘fail forward’ quote on the wall.

I’m going to guess your thoughts about failure didn’t mushroom overnight or magically appear when you moved into your leadership position.

Fear of failure most likely was instilled in you since you were young.

Most of us learned quickly through direct and indirect messages that failing is wrong. Shameful even.

In school, if you didn’t do well on a test or didn’t do it “right,” you failed.

The more you failed in school, the less success you achieved.

This fear of failure stuck with you.

But I will tell you that as a former employee, a C-suite executive, and now 6.5 years into my entrepreneurial journey, failure leads you to success.

Notice I didn’t write

‘It doesn’t suck.’

Because it can suck, but it’s the path to success.

When I learned how to manage my fear and change my relationship towards failure, I started to succeed exponentially.

I had to learn to think differently.

In order to scale your career, you have to learn how to scale your brain - Jill D.Griffin

First, success comes from evaluation.

In today's marketplace, we are leading teams, managing the velocity of everything everywhere all at once. It can be overwhelming. Hard to keep up. Even harder to track your progress.

Evaluate your performance on these three questions: What worked? What didn't work? What would you do differently? (Just make sure you give even weight to the first two)

Second, ensuring your thoughts align with your next actions is super important. Trying something and subtly thinking, ‘This is never going to work,’ means taking action from a place of doubt. Heaviness. Curiosity and asking, ‘What’s possible?’ as you take the next set of actions will create different results.

The thing about failure is that it is a universal experience.

Everyone (even the ‘Perfect Paula’ or ‘Flawless Finn,’ you know, the ones executive leadership praise in the workplace?) has experienced failure at one point in their career.

Third, diffuse the fear and talk about it.

Ask your mentor or CEO about times they’ve experienced failure in their careers. They will most likely have plenty to say.

(Ask me when I was told to secure speakers for an event. I wasn't told that I also had to secure the venue, find the budget, write the opening remarks for someone ELSE to read, notify the press, book a videographer, and write the social media copy for ticket sales. Trust me, I'll never make that mistake again).

This will also tell you much about your organization's nuanced or veiled culture. Talking about failure shouldn’t be ‘taboo’ in the workplace; it should be a thoughtful conversation about pivots, grit, and resilience.

Resistance to failure leaves you stagnant and keeps you small. Our brain tells us to stay safe; we can't go through that again because, well, we might fail. I've learned to reframe my thoughts when I try something new that doesn’t work. I now think, ‘Well, that sucked, but I’m one step closer to finding what will work.’

So, if you need a strategic and safe space for effective ways to move through failure,  I’m your gal. Let’s talk. Schedule a free consultation call HERE.