Fail Forward: Turning Setbacks into Stepping Stones

Failure. The word alone can trigger intense feelings of disappointment, shame, and inadequacy. But what if our perceived failures are actually disguised opportunities for growth? In this thought-provoking episode, we explore the transformative concept of "failing forward" – the idea that setbacks only become true failures when we fail to learn from them.

Diving deep into the 90-day planning process, we examine why goals sometimes remain unmet despite our best intentions. Was it a failure of execution? Did priorities shift? Or were our expectations misaligned with the realities of our business and life seasons? By analyzing what happened with curiosity rather than judgment, we discover invaluable insights that inform better planning for the future. The summer months bring unique challenges – whether you're managing teenagers' schedules or adapting to unexpected family responsibilities – and recognizing these seasonal shifts is crucial for setting realistic expectations.

Perhaps most importantly, we challenge the definition of failure itself. That $5,000 month that disappointed you might represent someone else's ambitious goal. Your perceived shortcomings may actually reflect impressive achievements when viewed from a different perspective. Remember that your business impact extends far beyond revenue metrics – you're building a legacy with every person you serve, regardless of whether you hit every numerical target. By embracing the lessons from our setbacks and maintaining perspective on our journey, we transform the concept of failure from something to fear into a powerful catalyst for growth. How might your business trajectory change if you viewed every "failure" as simply feedback?

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Previous Episode
• 0:15 Failing Forward Concept
• 1:07 Analyzing Your 90-Day Plan
• 2:46 Embracing Seasons in Business
• 3:52 Perspective on Failure and Impact

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Okay. So if you haven't listened to last episode, you got to go back and listen to that, because I clearly had a lot more to say than I anticipated One of the longest episodes that I've done for Unhinged but I feel like it was really important to go back through that episode. So today I want to talk about failure, and you have probably heard me say this before, but it's really important, in my opinion, to understand that when you fail, you fail forward. If you can learn from it, then it is not a failure, but you have to be able to learn from what it is that happened in order to continue to improve. So when we think of failure, we often think of I didn't hit the numbers as far as for the month, for the year, income wise, maybe I didn't do as much money in a launch that I anticipated that I would do, or I haven't gotten clients, I haven't been able to put together the course that I said that I was going to do, or or I set up 90 day goals and I didn't hit any of those goals. And what's important when we do this is that we, again we fail forward, we go back and we look and see why, and I love to be able to look at the numbers, because the numbers are what's most important. It's going to tell you the most information about your business and where you are possibly missing the mark. This is especially important when you're looking at goals, because if you have done your 90 day plan with me, many of you have probably gone through that program. If you have not, the 90 day plan is something that you can replicate every 90 days and it helps you set three goals for those 90 days, helps you set three goals for those 90 days, puts together the projects and then tasks that you need to do in order to be able to hit those goals. So when we're looking at that 90 day plan and we've turned and said I failed, I didn't hit any of those goals, none of that happened. It's important that when you set up that 90 day plan, you set up the projects that you wanted to complete in order to hit those goals. Now then, from those projects, you had to break down the tasks that needed to be completed. If you haven't been completing any of those tasks to the way in which you said you were going to, then, of course, you didn't hit your goals. What has happened? What have you focused on instead? I think this is really important for us to recognize and to be able to say, okay, I'm going to learn from this and start to plan better when it comes to our 90 days, when it comes to looking at and expecting to be able to do a certain amount of money or a certain amount of sales over the summer. What does your summer look like? Should that expectation be that high?

Speaker 1: 2:53

And we have to always take in mind the seasons to our business, the seasons to our lives, and sometimes those seasons aren't as predictable as we may think. Some of us may become grandparents and there's a new baby, and now we have to step in a bit more than we anticipated. Or we can be mothers that have toddlers at home where the summer hits and you're like whoa, this is different than when they were babies or even high school kids. You thought, okay, they're going to be able to really be able to take care of themselves. News thought okay, they're going to be able to really be able to take care of themselves. Newsflash, they still need you to drive you all over the place, and now they expect to go to a lot more places as teenagers.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So, being able to recognize those seasons in your life is also really important when you are taking a look at your goals and saying I failed.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So the biggest thing that I want you to take away from this is that failing forward is learning from what has gone wrong. In your terms, of what has gone wrong, because to someone else this is the other part about this is that your failures could likely be someone's actual goals. You only did 5,000 in a month and that was their goal, so keep that in mind. You have to have that perspective of understanding that, yes, this isn't exactly what you had planned for, what you set out for with your goals, but it's still value that you're putting out there, because, again, we want to always remember that this is about our legacy. This is about impacting as many people as we possibly can. So just because you didn't make as many sales doesn't mean that you didn't have an impact, especially if you did 5,000, 2,000, 1,000, whatever it is, depending upon your product and what the price point is. So when you are looking at this, always remember you're failing forward and learning from it.