Failure is an inevitable part of life, but smart people know how to make it work for them.

失败是生活中不可避免的一部分，但聪明的人知道如何利用它们。

One of the biggest roadblocks to success is the fear of failure. Fear of failure is worse than failure itself because it condemns you to a life of unrealized potential.

通向成功的障碍之一是害怕失败。害怕失败比失败本身更可怕，因为它谴责你过着未知可能性的生活。

A successful response to failure is all in your approach. In a study recently published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, researchers found that success in the face of failure comes from focusing on results (what you hope to achieve), rather than trying not to fail. While it's tempting to try and avoid failure, people who do this fail far more often than those who optimistically focus on their goals.

对失败最成功的回应在于你的方法。在《实验社会心理学杂志》最新发表的一篇研究中，研究人员发现，勇于面对挫折的成功感来源于对结果的关注（你希望实现的事），而不是尽量避免失败。尽管每个人对于失败都带有一种侥幸的心理，但这么做的人往往比那些乐观专注于自己目标的人更容易失败。

 

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." --Winston Churchill“

成功就是不断失败却不失信心。”——温斯顿·丘吉尔

This sounds rather easy and intuitive, but it's very hard to do when the consequences of failure are severe. The researchers also found that positive feedback increased people's chances of success because it fueled the same optimism you experience when focusing solely on your goals.

听起来相当容易和直观，但当失败的后果很严重时就很难做到了。研究人员同时发现积极的反馈提升了人们成功的机会，因为当你只关注自己的目标时，它会加深你的乐观感。

The people who make history--true innovators--take things a step further and see failure as a mere stepping stone to success. Thomas Edison is a great example. It took him 1,000 tries to develop a light bulb that actually worked. When someone asked him how it felt to fail 1,000 times, he said, "I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps."

创造历史的人（真正的革新者）会更进一步，把失败当做成功的垫脚石。托马斯·爱迪生是一个很好的例子，他尝试了1000次去发明可用的灯泡。当有人问他失败1000次是什么感觉时，他回答说，“我没有失败1000次，灯泡是一个经历了1000个步骤的发明。”

That attitude is what separates the successes from the failures. Thomas Edison isn't the only one. J. K. Rowling's manuscript for Harry Potter was only accepted after 12 publishers denied it, and even then she was only paid a nominal advance. Oprah Winfrey lost her job as a Baltimore news anchor for becoming too emotionally involved in her stories, a quality that became her trademark. Henry Ford lost his financial backers twice before he was able to produce a workable prototype of an automobile. The list goes on and on.

正是这种态度，把成功和失败的差别分的一清二楚。托马斯·爱迪生不是唯一一个。J.K.罗琳的《哈利·波特》原稿在被12家出版社拒绝之后才有人接受，即便是那时她只得到了名义上的预付款。因为对于自己的故事过于情绪化，奥普拉·温弗瑞丢了她在巴尔的摩新闻主播的工作，这个品质后来变成了她的标志。亨利·福特在生产出可行的汽车原型前两次失去了他的金融支持者。这样的例子不胜枚举。

 

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." --Henry Ford“

如果你认为自己能做一件事，那你就能做到；如果你认为自己不能做一件事，那你就做不到。”——亨利·福特

So, what separates the people who let their failures derail them from those who use failure to their advantage? Some of it comes down to what you do, and the rest comes down to what you think.

那么，向失败低头的人和敢于利用失败的人的区别是什么呢？其中一些归因于你怎么做，另一些归结于你怎么想。

The actions you take in the face of failure are critical to your ability to recover from it, and they have huge implications for how others view you and your mistakes. There are five actions you must take when you fail that will enable you to succeed in the future and allow others to see you positively in spite of your failure.

面对失败时你采取的行动对恢复能力是非常关键的，这些行动也深刻影响着别人怎样看待你以及你的错误。当你失败时，必须要采取这五个行动，它们能让你在未来成功，也能让其他人在你失败时也积极地看待你。

1. Break the bad news yourself. If you've made a mistake, don't cross your fingers and hope no one will notice, because someone is going to--it's inevitable. When someone else points out your failure, that one failure turns into two. If you stay quiet, people are going to wonder why you didn't say something, and they're likely to attribute this to either cowardice or ignorance.

1. 自己承认失败。如果你犯了一个错误，不要祈祷没人注意，因为总有人会注意到，这是不可避免的。当别人指出你的失败时，一个失败就变成了两个。如果你保持沉默，人们会好奇你为什么不说点什么，他们会把你的沉默归因于懦弱或是无知。

2. Offer an explanation, but don't make excuses. Owning your mistakes can actually enhance your image. It shows confidence, accountability, and integrity. Just be sure to stick to the facts. "We lost the account because I missed the deadline" is a reason. "We lost the account because my dog was sick all weekend and that made me miss the deadline" is an excuse.

2. 给出解释，但别找借口。承认自己的错误能大大提升你的个人形象。这展示了自信、责任以及正直。一定要坚持事实。“我们丢了账单，因为我错过了截止日期”是原因，“我们丢了账单，因为我的狗整个周末都在生病，所以我错过了截止日期”是借口。

3. Have a plan for fixing things. Owning up to a mistake is one thing, but you can't end it there. What you do next is critical. Instead of standing there, waiting for someone else to clean up your mess, offer your own solutions. It's even better if you can tell your boss (or whomever) the specific steps you've already taken to get things back on track.

3. 有解决问题的计划。承认错误是一回事，但你不应该就此打住。接下来的做法是非常关键的。与其站在那里，等别人帮你收拾烂摊子，不如自己去想解决办法。如果你能告诉你的老板（或其他人）为了让事情回到正轨你已经采取了哪些具体措施就更好了。

4. Have a plan for prevention. In addition to having a plan for fixing things, you should also have a plan for how you'll avoid making the same mistake in the future. That's the best way to reassure people that good things will come out of your failure.

4. 有预防措施。除了有摆平事情的计划，你还应该有预防同样事情再次发生的计划。这是人们从失败中吸取教训的最好方法。

5. Get back on the horse. It's important that you don't let failure make you timid. That's a mindset that sucks you in and handicaps you every time you slip up. Take enough time to absorb the lessons of your failure, and as soon as you've done that, get right back out there and try again. Waiting only prolongs bad feelings and increases the chance that you'll lose your nerve.

5. 重新开始。别让失败把自己变软弱是非常重要的。这是一个让你变得很糟糕的心态，并且每次跌倒时都妨碍你站起来。花足够的时间从失败中吸取教训，一旦完成，立刻重新开始并再次尝试。等待只会延长糟糕的感觉，并且增加了你失去勇气的机会。

Your attitude when facing failure is just as important as the actions you take. Using failure to your advantage requires resilience and mental strength, both hallmarks of emotional intelligence. When you fail, there are three attitudes you want to maintain.

1. Perspective is the most important factor in handling failure. People who are skilled at rebounding after failure are more likely to blame the failure on something they did--the wrong course of action or a specific oversight--rather than something they are. People who are bad at handling failure tend to blame failure on their laziness, lack of intelligence, or some other personal quality, which implies that they had no control over the situation. That makes them more likely to avoid future risk-taking.

1. 思维方式是处理失败时最重要的因素。擅长在失败中振作起来的人习惯于把失败归咎于自己做过的一些事，如错误的行动或是具体的疏忽，而不是事情本身。那些不善于处理失败的人倾向于把失败归因于他们的懒惰、不聪明或者其他个人原因，这暗示了他们对局面没有掌控力。这使得他们更容易避免未来的冒险行为。

2. Optimism is another characteristic of people who bounce back from failure. One British study of 576 serial entrepreneurs found they were much more likely to expect success than entrepreneurs who gave up after their first failure. That sense of optimism is what keeps people from feeling like failure is a permanent condition. Instead, they tend to see each failure as a building block to their ultimate success because of the learning it provides.

2. 乐观是人们从失败中振作起来的另一个重要特征。英国一份关于576名连续创业者的研究发现，相比于第一次失败就放弃的创业者，他们更希望获得成功。这种乐观的态度能让人不把失败当做永远的相反，由于失败所提供的教训，他们倾向于把每次失败看作是最终成功的组成部分。

3. Persistence. Optimism is a feeling of positivity; persistence is what you do with it. It's optimism in action. When everybody else says, "Enough is enough" and decides to quit and go home, persistent people shake off those failures and keep going. Persistent people are special because their optimism never dies. This makes them great at rising from failure.

3. 坚持不懈。乐观是积极向上的感觉，坚持是你做事情的方法。在行动中保持乐观。当大家都说，“够了”并且决定放弃回家的时候，坚持不懈的人会摆脱这些失败继续向前。坚持不懈的人是特殊的，因为他们的乐观永远都在。这使得他们擅长从失败中崛起。

转自沪江英语