Anything For You All: INSTANT MBA: 3 Tips For Getting Back On Your Feet After A Major Setback

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September 23, 2014

Whether it's losing a major client at work or watching a relationship deteriorate, everyone has experienced failure at some point in their life.

And while it's difficult to wade through when it happens, once you've picked yourself back up, past failures can motivate you to do an even better job next time.

"Failure is the inevitable price of trying to do something," writes Karl Smith, founder of Business Networking South Africa, in a recent LinkedIn post. "It forces you to be more creative as you look for new ways."

But finding inspiration from failure is often easier said than done. For anyone trying to get back on their feet after a setback, here are three steps for becoming stronger than ever:

1. Own up to it. Perseverance is necessary to push through rough patches, but it can also be your downfall if you refuse to admit failure. Hard as it may be, learn to recognize and accept when something isn't working, Smith advises. "Being able to recognize a failure just means that you'll be able to re-cast it into something more likely to succeed," he adds. "Failure teaches you what doesn't work."

2. Remember past success. Yes, you failed this time. But this one failure is just a piece of the bigger picture. "Failing doesn't mean that you're worthless, or that you'll never achieve the things you want," Smith explains. Instead of dwelling on where you went wrong, remember all the times when things went right. Find a way to learn from this mistake the same way you've learned from other ones.

3. Take action. Once you've accepted your failure, it's important to make decisions about what you'll do next, because simply doing nothing will only keep you stagnated where you are. Forget about the past and think about the future, Smith suggests. "You can't change it so you may as well stop worrying about it," he says. "Take stock of what you have learned. Repackage your knowledge, experience, skills and move on to accomplish your purpose."

Read the full LinkedIn post here.

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