Becoming Resilient – Bouncing Back from Mistakes and Failures

By Linda Wagner, VP, Marketing Communications

On September 18^th, Financial Women San Francisco, in a joint event with the San Francisco Bank Attorneys, hosted Sara Holtz, podcast producer and host of “Advice to My Younger Me.” For the past three years, Sara has been speaking to very successful women from all sorts of backgrounds – business and technology executives, journalists, academics, lawyers, authors, coaches and consultants – about what they wished they had known earlier in their careers. One of the consistent themes is the need to take risks. But risks are scary. And sometimes they don’t work out. However, if you feel that you can be more resilient in the face of failure, then you are more likely to take risks.

The evening program focused on a six-step process to help you bounce back from ordinary day-to-day mistakes or as Sara refers to them, “baby failures,” becoming more resilient in the process. Following a discussion, during which attendees shared their experience with mistakes, Sara then tackled how to handle big failures, following a four-step process.

Six Steps for Bouncing Back from Mistakes

1. Own up to the mistake
2. Take responsibility
3. Fix it, if you can
4. Explain what you will do to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future
5. Learn from it
6. Move on

This last step – move on – is the most important of all. Studies show that women tend to ruminate much more than men. Also, they tend to ascribe mistakes more to themselves than to circumstances. Stop doing it! Move on!

Four Steps for Bouncing Back from Failures

1. Don’t “catastrophize”
2. Don’t ruminate
3. Learn from it
4. Move on

Failing to learn from a failure is a waste of a perfectly good failure. Go take that risk. Her guests said all the good things that happened in their lives came from taking risks. Know that you are more resilient than you think. Know that you can be even more resilient with Sara’s step-by-step processes. Own it. Fix it (if you can). Don’t catastrophize. Don’t ruminate. Learn from it. Move on!