Don’t get hung up on last year’s missteps — make them work for you!
It’s a new year, a time that inspires us to reflect on the year before and to make plans for what’s to come. Looking back on what you’ve accomplished and the progress you’ve made can be a joyful and empowering exercise, but what if things didn’t go how you’d hoped in 2023? As you compare yourself with others, it may seem like everyone had a great year — except you. It’s easy for that feeling to turn into a spiral of disappointment and negativity.
I recently met with a client (we’ll call her Laura) who came to me with these exact feelings. Laura is a founder and CEO with much to celebrate, but as she ruminated on 2023, she struggled to move past her perceived failures. She was so focused on what hadn’t gone well that she wasn’t able to move forward or create new goals for 2024. It’s a sticky mind trap that all of us have fallen prey to at one time or another.
When things don’t go as expected, it’s easy to call it a loss. But what could happen if you reframed those less-than-perfect events? What could you learn about your organization, your leadership, yourself? Here’s how to make 2023’s life lessons work for you.
Acknowledge your wins — without caveats
Failure is hard to stomach for even the most successful people, and research has shown that our discomfort with the prospect actually prevents us from learning from our mistakes. Losses are a hit to the ego, and before we can see the value in what happened, we need to heal that wound. Human beings are better able to tolerate failure when they have a past history of accomplishment, so it’s equally important to celebrate your successes as it is to analyze your missteps.
It’s not as easy as it sounds, however. When I challenged Laura to celebrate her wins, she did what many of us do in this situation: minimized them. Every win came with a “but”. Her company made a significant profit… But not as much as she wanted. She’d been able to bring on more people… But not as many as she’d hoped. Any founder (and leader!) knows how difficult those milestones are to achieve, but Laura couldn’t see how much she had to be proud of — yet.
If you’re in a similar place, try making a list of your wins, big and small, from 2023. If you find it tough to get started, try going through your calendar month by month to help you recall. Once you’ve completed your list, go back over it and look for any qualifiers. If you see yourself adding a “but” or dismissing your achievements, cross it out. Then, reread your list and give yourself a better picture of all you’ve really accomplished this year.
Ask yourself: What are you most proud of this year? What was the smartest decision you made, and what was its impact? What was your biggest failure or mistake, and what did you learn from it?
Get curious
Your mindset largely determines whether you will be able to benefit from a perceived “setback” or not. Most of us look at mistakes from a place of judgment (for ourselves and others), but that’s not the only option we have. What if we were able to see failure for what it really is: an opportunity to learn?
You’ve likely heard the term “growth mindset”. It’s commonly thrown around, so much that you may be rolling your eyes at me right now, but the principle underneath is powerful. People with a growth mindset see failure as an opportunity to grow, understanding that skill can always be developed. Nothing about our potential is set in stone. It’s an easy concept to grasp, but it can be difficult to embody.
Developing a growth mindset requires a conscious shift in how you perceive challenges, including seeing opportunities for learning and growth in every situation, while believing in one’s capacity to develop and improve. So the next time you “fail,” choose curiosity instead of judgment. Step back, and examine what happened with an analytical eye. Reflect on what went wrong, learn from it, and use that knowledge to do better next time. Then, congratulate yourself for being brave enough to try something new.
Ask yourself: At the end of 2024, what would you like to be most proud about? What actions, behaviors, priorities, and mindset shifts do you need to put in place in order to get there? How might you need to shift how you spend your time and energy? Write some “I will…” statements that can guide you in 2024.
In my work with Laura, she described wanting to learn from, and then “move on”, from her losses in 2023. I understand the desire to put tough experiences in the rearview mirror, but I challenged her (and now I’m challenging you) to take a different course of action. Instead, acknowledge what happened, learn what lessons you can, and then implement them. Only then will you be able to plan for the future with clarity.
"Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” — James Joyce, Ulysses