Sometimes in life it doesn’t matter how smart, skilled, or talented you are; you are going to fail. Blame it on the economy, the job market, George Bush, or your mom. You are going to fail, and failure sucks. Sure, you can make yourself feel better by recalling the old adages of get back up and dust off, you only learn through failure, or what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. Regardless of how much you try to make yourself feel better the cold fact remains that you just failed.

I’ve dealt with a lot of failure lately. Working with the manufacturing industry it is almost an everyday occurrence. Beyond that I have had a number of impossible jobs. I feel like I’ve become a bit of an expert on how to fail here lately. So here is how I have learned to fail.

1.    Know when to give up. I hate failing, even more I hate knowing that no matter how many times I try I and how hard I work at it that I will never succeed. I also don’t like quitting though so I have a hard time giving up. Sometimes you have to just take your loss and walk away, it is never going to get better and you are only prolonging the torture. You are not less of a person for giving up when the time is right, some things are just not worth the effort to fail over and over again.

2.    Know when to ask for help. I go at everything full speed and all at once. I have a multi-tasking mind and if I am not working on 10 things I go crazy. Asking for help seems like failing to me, so I have a hard time asking for help. What I have had to suck up and realize is that although I can take on 10 intensive projects and do a good job at them, I can only do 5 and do a great job. By offloading some of the work I am able to produce better results and fail less often.

3.    Know when to say no. If someone comes to me and says “hey I’ve got this job that no one else has managed to succeed at yet, do you want it?” My response is always hell yeah I’ll take it. I love doing something that no one else has managed to get right. Sometimes there is a reason no one has been able to do it. I’ve had to learn to say no to the impossible, not matter how bad I really want to make it work.

4.    Know when you are not the failure. I’ve been in jobs before where I am put in situations time and time again that I fail at. Sometimes it isn’t the task and it isn’t you. When you are being forced to measure your work by unreasonable task and goals you are not the one failing. Most the time it is something out of your control and you will never be able to compensate for a much larger failure that is not yours.

5.    Know when succeeding is not worth it. Again, I really don’t like giving up on something. I am the type that I will work for a week straight with no sleep just to succeed. The problem is that there are more important things in life than filling that workshop or promoting that event. Sometimes failing at work is less important than failing at life. Eventually in the drive for success you will have to make that choice, and you have to know how to make the correct choice.