5 strategies that top performers use to overcome failure

5 strategies that top performers use to overcome failure5 strategies that top performers use to overcome failureLets face it. Despite all the rage about fail fast and fail forward in Silicon Valley, one fact is undeniable Failure sucks. Its painful. Its embarrassing. When it happens, you want to get into the fetal position and hide underneath your blankets.Failure is also ubiquitous. Even top performers- people we tend to put on a pedestal- got to where they are after failing, failing, and failing some mora. Behind the glamour is the font of messy and imperfect reality that confronts us all.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraOn theFamous Failurespodcast, I interview the worlds most interesting people about the failures theyve had in their lives and what they learned from them. Based on these interviews, Ive culled together five strategies that top performers use to cope with failur e. As Rocky Balboa said, Life is elend about how hard you hit. Its about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.When you inevitably get hit, try one (or more) of these tactics to keep moving forward.1. Isaac Lidsky Quieting your inner criticIsaac Lidskyis an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and coveted speaker. He was a child television star, appearing as series regular Weasel on NBCs Saved By The Bell The New Class. He left his acting career and went on to graduate from Harvard at 19 with an honors degree in mathematics and computer science. He returned to Harvard to study law and became the only blind rolle to clerk on the U.S. Supreme Court (for Justices Sandra Day OConnor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg).Isaac was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a rare degenerative disease of the retina. From age 12 to 25, he slowly lost his sight. Using insights from his experiences, he authored the New York Times bestseller,Eyes Wide Open.Heres how Isaac copes with the debilitating inner cr itic that lives inside of our headsWhen I think about our fear of failure and ongoing struggle in the face of big challenges, I think about Teddy Roosevelts brilliant remarks about the critic and the strong man. To my mind, Roosevelts critic embodies our fear of failure, a very pernicious force, this nasty voice in our mind that tells us what we cant do. It tells us what other people are going to think and say about us, and it can be really debilitating.If you listen to the critic in your mind long enough and if youre not careful, you will believe him. Then the criticism becomes self-fulfilling. Once you believe him, it brings about the result you hoped to avoid in the first instance.Think about someone whos a dancer, lets say, who loves their craft and finds joy in it, but is so terrified of the nasty reviews of both that internal critic and external critics, that it keeps them off the stage. They lose the joy in dancing and stop doing it altogether. To me, thats the allegorical he art-breaking example of this dynamic at work.Taking control of your reality is understanding that these nasty messages youre getting from yourself, and this barrage of cues youre getting from what you see around you about what success should look like and what you should be doing, are really just noise. They dont need to govern your life, your behavior, or your decisions, unless you choose to let them do so.I think fundamentally it is all choice. We choose in every single moment how we want to live our lives and who we want to be.2. Adam Grant Mindset and Time TravelAdam Grantis an organizational psychologist, the top-rated professor at Wharton, a coveted speaker, and a prolific author. He is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and live more generous and creative lives.Hes the host of the newWorkLife podcast.Heres how Adam copes with failureI think theres a battle between two reactions to failure. One is the defensive, self-protective, this is something that I never want to experience again so Im not going to try anything hard, or new, again. The other is the curious, the pro-active, the gritty, the learning-oriented, fill-in-your-blank set of reactions.What I try to do is choose the latter. Its easier to do that now, knowing that Ive been through it a bunch of times. I dont start out with confidence that Im a good teacher, a good writer, or a good researcher. But I do have confidence that Im good at learning things and Im motivated to get better.In the long run, the person I want to be is the person who says, I didnt give up at something I might have been able to improve at, and eventually excel at.Mental time travel is also helpful. Zooming out, I know that next month, this failure is not going to sting as much as it does today. In a year, I might have even forgotten it, if I look at my past experience. So in the long run, how will I want to have reacted? Its like stepping on the accelerator of the learning reaction.3. Daniel Pink Mea n ReversionDaniel Pinkis the author of seven groundbreaking books, including the 1 New York Times bestsellers,A Whole New MindandDrive. His newest book,When The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, was published in January 2018 and became an instant New York Times bestseller. Heres how Dan uses mean reversion to deal with failureThis is going to sound ridiculously hyper-rational, but its truthful I believe in mean reversion. Things will go up and things go down, but ultimately everything reverts to the mean. If you have some things that are working really well, at some point somethings not going to work well. If you have things that are not working very well, at some point, somethings going to work well.As a consequence, I try not to get too disappointed when things go south. And if something goes well, I feel better than if it doesnt go well, but its not as if Im celebrating and feeling a sense of euphoria. Its more like, Okay, thats good. Im glad. Then I move on.With mean reversi on, you dont get too bummed out by the lows and you dont get too pumped up by the highs. You just do the best work you can in every circumstance. You focus on the work rather than on how the outcome of the work makes you feel.4. Bea Arthur Just do itA child of entrepreneurs,Bea Arthurhas used her tenacity and creativity to become a successful therapist, entrepreneur, and media personality. As a celebrated woman in tech, shes been a TedX speaker, Forbes writer, and the first black woman admitted to Y Combinator, the worlds most prestigious start-up incubator. Heres how Bea finds the motivation to move forward in the face of failureMy family is from goldkste in West Africa. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs. My older sister is an entrepreneur. Africa is the perfect place for the startup mindset because theres very little infrastructure and the idea of starting something and it being orderly just isnt as big. If I walked into a bureau and said, Heres my application for an LLC, that paper isnt going anywhere. So, naturally, theres a by-any-means-necessary kind of mindset. You do what you have to do to make it work.Ill say that Im really blessed to have this fearlessness. I wasnt scared because I didnt know to be scared. Dont do too much homework. Dont listen to too many podcasts. Just do it. You can follow all the formulas you want, but the unique power of execution is in you and the way you do things. Be flexible and dont be too bull-headed.5. Gretchen Rubin Find the fun in failureGretchen Rubinstarted her career in law- including clerking for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor- before stopping everything to become a writer. Though the transition was pitted with failure, it turned out to be one of the best decisions she made. Not only has she written three New York Times Bestsellers- Better Than Before,The Happiness Project, andHappier at Home- shes also built an enormous readership, sold more than three million books, and started a popular weekly podcas t called Happier with Gretchen Rubin.This is a mantra that has really helped me Enjoy the fun of failure. I think people sometimes have this feeling of shame when they fail. Like, they want to pretend it didnt happen. So, enjoying the fun of failure is trying to recast failure in a more lighthearted way. Dont try to ignore or re-categorize the failure- own it and have fun with it.Failure is part of success- if youre not failing, youre not trying hard enoughnot pushing the boundaries far enough. If Im just doing everything the way Ive always done it, and everythings just kind of trickling along, thats not a good sign.This article first appeared on Ozanvarol.com.Ozan Varol is a rocket scientist turned law professor and bestselling author.Click hereto download a free copy of his e-book, The Contrarian Handbook 8 Principles for Innovating Your Thinking. Along with your free e-book, youll get the Weekly Contrarian - a newsletter that challenges conventional wisdom and changes the way we look at the world (plus access to exclusive content for subscribers only).