What you label as “failure” is the result of unmet expectations.

You’ve lost a job, a business, a contract, a relationship, an opportunity.

Something did not go according to your plan, and as a result, the rug has been pulled out from under you.

Instead of asking “Why me?” a better question to ask is “What now?”

The rest of this article is the answer to that question.

Here are three ways to move forward after failure.

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01 / Do an asset audit

When it feels like everything is falling apart and things aren’t going the way we want them to, we can easily get caught up in our heads and emotions, and get stuck in the experience of loss or failure.

In turn, we focus on lack–what we’ve lost, what else we stand to lose, and what we fear we will lose next.

In this disempowered state of mind, we are the victims.

And a victim, by definition, has no power.

But by shifting your focus to what you do have, you re-equip yourself with both motivation and tangible tools you can use to get out of your situation, thereby re-empowering yourself to recover from your setback.

Take inventory of your recovery tools by asking questions like:

What do I have?

• What skills do I have?
• What tools do I have?
• How much money do I have?
• What other resources do I have?

Who do I know?

• What mentors do I have?
• What referrals could I get?
• What professional or academic connections do I have?
• Who do I know that has successfully gotten through a situation like this?

Who you know does not just end at the people you have actual firsthand relationships with in your life.

You also have a network of people who are an extension of the people you know because, for lack of better wording, the people you know, know people.

And even further beyond that, you have a virtual network of mentors, coaches, and peers at your disposal in the form of authors, bloggers, podcast hosts, youtubers, facebook group members, and more, who have freely accessible knowledge to help you.

What do I not have, but can acquire using the assets I do have?

• What money could I acquire?
• What knowledge can I acquire?
• How can I use my intellect, my creativity, my resourcefulness to get what I don’t currently have?

Now that you’ve determined what you have…

How can you turn your assets into options?

I have a family friend who is the kind of person you want around when you think there’s nothing to eat in the house.

You think there’s nothing in the refrigerator?

This woman will take ketchup, bottom of the bag Dorito crumbs, three ounces of sour cream, a pickle, and last week’s leftover Hamburger Helper, and make four-cheese lasagna, vegetable melange, and a homemade peach cobbler for dessert.

Don’t ask me how she does it, but she does.

She finds a way to get creative with what she has to make what she wants.

Where I see nothing, she sees ingredients that can be put together to make something out of nothing.

You can do this with your assets.

Look closely enough at what all you have at your disposal, and you will find ways to turn your assets into opportunities.

02 / Put your ego aside

The purpose of the asset audit was to open your eyes to the options you have available.

If you take the time to sit down and brainstorm this, you will likely reach a point at least once where you stop yourself.

Our egos can get in the way of us seeing and considering all options at our disposal.

Sometimes it’s not true that all is lost.

All that is ideal is lost.

All that is comfortable is lost.

All that is easiest on our egos is lost.

But all is not actually lost.

So the question to ask yourself here is:

What options do I have that I may not want to exploit because of my ego, but are still options?

You may not want to, but you can…

• sleep on a friend’s couch
• move back in with your parents
• take a job you don’t like for less pay than you’re used to
• downsize to reduce your living expenses and make your money go further

These are all potential scenarios that can help you climb out of a hole, and the part to remember is that they don’t need to be permanent.

Just because you do something, it doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.

Just because your situation is one particular way doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever.

Countless highly successful people we look up to had to bounce back from “rock bottom” and were at one point living in their cars, couch surfing, sharing an apartment with five or more roommates, or on government assistance. 

We pridefully broadcast our victories and shamefully hide our failures because we mistakenly equate what we do with who we are.

We tie our self worth to whatever it is we can present to outwardly exemplify achievement to others.

We tie our identity to our ability to consistently present the highest and best version of ourselves.

With this way of thinking, a failure at an endeavor makes a person a failure.

But this isn’t true.

They’re just a person experiencing a temporary failure.

Don’t judge yourself based on the fact that you have taken a fall.

Judge yourself based on your willingness to do whatever it takes to get back up.

Even if it means you have to go backwards to go forwards.

A slingshot can propel objects at extreme speed, but only if the object it is propelling is pulled back first.

Despite the object being first pulled back, it can propel forward at a distance multiple times greater than the distance it was pulled back.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is take one step back now in order to make it easier for you to take two steps forward in the future.

03 / Start tracking

Things are rarely as bad in real life as they are in our heads.

We tend to err on the side of melodrama and perceive our quality of work, progress in life, capabilities, and circumstances to be worse than they actually are.

This feeling is exacerbated by setbacks and “failures” that (inevitably) come up along our paths.

You may think or feel like you suffered a 90% loss in your business, but that may not actually be true.

You may think or feel like your bank account has been at a standstill no matter what you do, but that may not actually be true.

It may be true that you’re not growing as fast as you want, but it’s probably not true that you’re not growing at all.

It may be true that you’ve experienced a major loss, but it’s probably not true that you’ve lost everything.

But as long as you stay in your head, emotions mix with the subjective, overpowering the objective reality of your situation, which disempowers you to change it.

This is where the power of tracking comes into play.

It gives you an objective perspective of your situation and your progress towards bettering it.

You have to get things out of your head and on “paper” (literal or digital) to really objectively see how you’re doing, and what you can do about it.

Tracking provides three major benefits:

• It reveals to you the areas where you’re doing better than you thought
• It brings greater awareness to the areas where you need improvement
• The inherent accountability of the act of tracking makes you more consistent with doing the tasks that will lead you to success

How to Track Things Effectively

01 Get a tracking document.

Choose one single place where you can write everything down and keep a record of your progress over time up until the point where you complete your final goal.

This is where a habit tracker is essential.

If you don’t have one, take mine.

02 State your goal.

Be clear about what your end goal is.

What will have to be achieved for you to “get back on track” or “get back on the wagon”?

It may be to invest 30 thousand dollars in stocks, or rebuild your business again by selling 100 products a day.

Choose what makes sense for you.

03 Choose your inputs.

Inputs are the parts that are directly within your control.

These are the consistent, frequently executed tasks or habits necessary for the achievement of your goal.

They serve as building blocks towards your overall objective.

The best inputs are:

• small
• easy to remain consistent with
• done 5-7 days a week over a period of at least 3 months
• or done once a week over a period of at least 12 months
• Think: a daily 1-hour workout or a weekly blog post for example

04 Choose your metrics.

This is the part where you tie a number to your inputs to make them quantifiable so you can track whether they are going up or down over time.

This could be number of email subscribers, website page views, weight on a scale, dollars saved, etc.

Choose a metric that matters based on your goal.

05 Track your inputs frequently.

Track your inputs as frequently as you have committed to doing them.

For daily inputs, that would mean you would take note every single day that you did what you were supposed to do.

06 Track your outputs infrequently.

Outputs are the parts that are only made possible by the inputs, but are not 100% within your control.

Often, the output is one and the same as the ultimate goal itself, or the goal metric. 

For example: To increase your business sales, your goal (and metric) may be to gain 100,000 subscribers. You can control and guarantee posting on social media once every day (input). You cannot control and guarantee the number of followers you get every day (output), although gaining followers is made possible by posting consistently.

Choose a fixed interval to check your outputs.

If you have committed to a daily input, check your outputs weekly or monthly.

If you have committed to a weekly input, check your outputs monthly or quarterly.

You want to check your outputs at an interval that is long enough to allow consistency to do its magic, and short enough to see if you need to change strategies or correct course along the way.

Do not check your output metrics any time in between your pre-decided upon interval.

You’ll just mentally frazzle yourself, emotionally torture yourself, lose focus, and lose motivation.

Nothing grows on a perfect upward trajectory.

If you look at your weight, stock portfolio, follower count, etc daily, you will see ups and downs that will make you think in the short term that you’re doing much better or worse than you actually are.

But, if you zoom out and look on a wider time horizon, you’ll see that although in the micro you may not always be going the direction you want, in the macro, you are.

It’s going to take consistent inputs over time to see success from a broader perspective.

So for the sake of your mental health (trust me), after you’ve set your goals, your focus should be purely on the inputs.

With consistency on the right inputs, the outputs will take care of themselves.

When we’re accustomed to having certain opportunities, assets, or income at our disposal, if the rug is pulled out from under us, we’re quick to dramatically move to the opposite end of the spectrum and assume we now have nothing.

But that is never the case.

You always have something you can use to get yourself back on track.

Even when things are stripped away from you, you always have more than you think.

Even at the times when you feel powerless, there is always something you can do within your power.

Failure does not have to be final, as long as you are willing to do everything within your control to get back up and get back on track again.

Hope this helps! 💛