I just finished a project that went sideways and I sense it will have both a personal and professional impact for me. How can I recover from this career setback?

All professionals have setbacks in their career. George Clooney was in 15 television pilot shows before his career took off with ER. The true test of any professional is the person’s ability to deal with failure. In fact, employers should ask potential hires how they have dealt with failure. It is often the most important question you can ask a job candidate, since it gives you an accurate picture of the person you would be getting.

Here is an action plan:

1. Own your part in the failure. You have to be honest with yourself and take appropriate ownership of the issues. Dealing with the negative emotions and frustrations is key. This enables you to work through the issue in a healthy way and get to a resolution sooner.
2. Separate the facts. After you deal with the emotions of a career failure, you can start to see the facts. As you start dealing with the facts, you are empowered to see the situation in a more objective way. You can become more impartial and gather the data that will help you learn from this experience.
3. What lessons are you meant to learn? This, in my mind, is the most important principle. When you go through tough situations you can beat yourself up or you can choose to learn as much as you can from the situation. Everyone recognizes that you can’t afford to have too many projects that don’t go well, so what are can you learn from this experience? Take stock of all the elements involved: the team; the support of, and type of management; the scope of the project; your role on the team; budgets; project timeline; technology issues, and any strategic partners that may have been involved. Look at each piece and identify what worked and what didn’t work. Look at your most recent successful project and benchmark the differences. Study yourself; this will give you a strong sense of your success and failure patterns. As you understand your success and your failure patterns, you can make wiser choices.

Hockey coach Roger Neilson was a pioneer in taping and reviewing previous games, and this had a tremendous impact on the teams he coached. One of his key strengths was that he was not afraid of the failures he reviewed. Neilson hit them head on and had the courage to start each game afresh. Learn from his example – your career is worth it!

Alan Kearns is the Head Coach and the Brand Champion! of CareerJoy. He is one of Canada’s foremost experts on all things career. With more than 14 years of experience coaching people through successful career changes, he brings an intimate knowledge of the entire transition process to all of his clients. To contact Alan about paid professional services, e-mail alan@careerjoy.com or visit his web site www.careerjoy.com.

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Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.