Let's be honest, no one likes failing. It hurts and it rarely helps our mental health. Over time, some people even get used to it and expect it. That’s the last time I focus on the negative though, because I'm about to explore some of the positive aspects of failure. That’s right, failure can actually be our friend.

Let’s look at how you can reframe failure and learn from it.

For me, this is a serious subject. Failure can warp the narratives around people’s lives and be the start of some extremely negative spirals. They will tell themselves that they just can't succeed, or that there's no way they can overcome a challenge.

Before I begin to explore failure though, I want to assure you that I am sympathetic if things haven't gone your way. This isn't some macho post where I separate the world into winners and losers. I'm not going to tell you that you can achieve anything if you want it enough either. None of that is helpful.

This is about how you look at failure and the relationship you choose to have with it.

It probably won't surprise you that I've selected three easy things that can help you. Let's start off by looking at what failure can do for us.

Learn from mistakes

I honestly believe that failure can be an effective teacher. It's so easy to get caught up with the emotion and negativity associated with it and walk straight back into the same situations and mistakes. Some people may not even be aware of this, and find themselves caught in vicious circles. Even worse, they may blame someone else or just put it down to bad luck.

I think that part of the problem is that we only get to hear about the winners when it comes to success. We’re never presented with biographies of the people who have failed. We usually only hear about those who have succeeded, regardless of how they did it. The problem is, they’ll probably leave out the bits where they took wrong turns or luck stepped in to save them.

I don’t know about you, but I’d love to hear from someone who made a lot of mistakes. This helps me avoid my own. I can pick them apart and learn from all aspects of them. I also try to share them. I remember once helping someone set up a website and joked that the most important thing I could share with them was my mistakes. This struck me as soon as I said it.

While many people would look at this as me sharing my skills and knowledge, I saw it is helping them shoot forward without experiencing the same costly setbacks I had faced. They would benefit from my mistakes, and have the opportunity to avoid them.

The funny thing is, I realised that in many ways, I wouldn’t have all my skills and knowledge without making those mistakes, and learning from them. I think this is so important when it comes to personal development.

People rarely look at where they went wrong before and what prompted their choices. This isn't about beating yourself up though, it’s about gaining awareness. It's about avoiding those same type of mistakes in future.

Now we’ll look at what we can do when we realise we’ve made a mistake.

Know when to walk away

Ever heard of sunk-cost bias? It's something that could cause you a lot of problems, and I'll use the example of everyone’s favourite supersonic airliner to explain.

In the 1960s, the British and French governments invested heavily in Concorde. Basically, it was a big deal. It was a huge technical challenge that required a lot of investment and the world was watching. There was a lot of talk and very high expectations.

The result was a modern marvel that was the stuff of dreams. Unfortunately, that didn't make it a success. To cut a long story short, operating costs and noise issues soon made it clear that there would be huge challenges and very little chance of reaching their goals, or simply breaking even.

Despite this, the money kept pouring in. It's almost the perfect example of throwing good money after bad. Concorde had reached a point where it simply couldn't fail. So much had been promised, so much had been done and so much was expected. The only option seemed to be to keep going.

I honestly believe that sunk-cost bias is behind some of the biggest and most costly mistakes people make. 

If we think about it, it's more like a series of mistakes and it's often caused by people not learning from them or denying them. I could go on, but I think it's better to get straight to the point. We need to learn when to walk away.

There will be a point in a venture, project, job or relationship where it should be clear that it's not going to work. The skill is to spot this, accept it and do something about it.

I am in no way saying that there aren't times when we need to dig deep and persevere, just that we sometimes need to be realistic. As I said, I think these can be the most costly, avoidable and painful failures.

It’s a matter of putting the head before the heart and knowing when to walk away.

Sometimes, we may need help with this though. When U2 were recording The Joshua Tree album, their guitarist, Edge laboured for weeks on recording the introduction to the song Where The Streets Have No Name. It required a tricky change of time signature and it just wasn't working. The more work he put in, the more problems appeared.

In the end, the producer Brian Eno had to take drastic action. He deleted the tapes and forced Edge to start again. The rest is history. I'm not saying you should destroy someones work though, just think about this.

Now it’s time to look at what happens after we fail.

Let go

For me, the most important aspect of failure is our relationship with it. Ultimately, we choose how we view failure. We also choose how we respond to it and how long we keep it with us.

I don't mean to sound uncaring or dispassionate, I just want to present some simple facts. This is coming from a mindful perspective as well. I want people to recover from failure as soon as they can and minimise the impact on their mental health.

So far, we've learned that failure can be an effective teacher that can guide people away from future problems. We've also seen that a blinkered approach can make things a lot worse. Now it's time to forgive ourselves. One of the most effective things I've learned is unfortunately, one of the hardest things to follow. 

When you make a mistake, you should give yourself two minutes to feel bad and beat yourself up. It's then time to move on and learn your lesson. That last part is so important, as we don't want to forget it happened or absolve ourselves of responsibility, just lose the emotional baggage. 

As I've said, this is a struggle for me but I think it's great advice. We're often the ones who inflict the most damage on ourselves when we make a mistake.

This can also apply to so many other things in life, whether it's an injustice, accident or loss. Ultimately, there's a time when we need to let go. It’s not about forgetting, it’s not about being ok with it, it’s just about accepting what is and not being in conflict with something we can’t change.  

If we get the balance right, failure can provide strong motivation. A desire to get things right in future and achieve your goals.

I hope this helped and that you take away something that's useful. Hopefully you can reframe failure now.

Just remember these three easy things:

• Learn from mistakes

• Know when to walk away

• Let go

They can help you learn important lessons, avoid your Concorde and simply let go. They really can help you improve your mental health and be more productive.

Before you go, I’d just like you to quickly think about the other side of this. Think about those who are considered successful. It’s not always that clear. For example, someone with a vast fortune could have lost focus on important relationships, and a successful business person may have only been in the right place at the right time.

As I have said before on the site, you should do your best to run your own race. It also helps to go easy on yourself.