In this instructional video, career and business mindset coach Natalie Fisher explains how to handle failure in the workplace. She begins by defining failure simply as the omission of an expected or required action, emphasizing that the definition itself is neutral. Fisher then explores how people often make failure personal—believing it reflects a lack of ability, worth, or suitability—and argues that this self‑attribution is the source of negative emotions. She proposes reframing failure as neutral data: a factual record of what didn’t work, which can be examined without shame. Fisher stresses that failure is a necessary component of success, providing learning opportunities that bring one closer to goals. She outlines a practical mindset process: (1) view failure as a step in a larger process, (2) separate facts (numbers, feedback) from emotions, (3) analyze the facts to identify corrective actions, and (4) iterate without self‑criticism. The video distinguishes between everyday setbacks (missed numbers, minor mistakes) and larger professional failures, acknowledging the latter can feel career‑debilitating but still can be managed with the same neutral approach. Finally, Fisher promotes her free workshop and coaching services, inviting viewers to subscribe, comment, and engage for further guidance on achieving career and business results.
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In this video, I'm talking about dealing with failure at work, how to handle failure at work. I love talking about failure, so stay tuned. All right, so I'm gonna start with the definition of failure. It's very simple. It's not actually that scary. The omission of expected or required action. That's it. No big deal, right? First thing, what are you making the failure mean about you? Are you making it mean something personal about you? Are you making it mean that, for example, the most common ones, you're not good enough? Reason people feel bad about failing is because they make it mean something specific about them. So maybe they made it mean that they were not a good employee, or that they were not cut out for this, or that they weren't going to ever be able to do it, or that they should have known better. Is this sounding familiar? If it was just something that happened, if it was neither good nor bad, and it was just neutral, Then could you see it differently then? It was just something that happened. Okay, that's neutral data. That didn't work. That particular thing didn't work. What's next? Totally different, right? So second, failure is labeled as a bad thing, but I'm not really sure why. Failing is a part of getting to success. Each time we fail, we get closer to the success that we want. We learn something if we choose to. So for example, in school, when we get an F on a paper, we're often shamed or told to put that away. Like, oh, that's awful. Instead of really digging into it and seeing, well, what happened? What was the questions that you got wrong? What was the questions that you got right? Why did you get an F on this? You know, was it justified? Like sometimes with creative papers, like somebody might like it, one teacher might like it, another teacher might not like it, right? There's a whole bunch of things that come into play. Failing is not a bad thing, but we're taught that it is. Right? But the truth is we need it. We need to fail in order to learn so that we can succeed. So stop labeling failure as a bad thing and just see it as something that you need in your life in order to learn, in order to get to the next level. So third, what if failure were just no big deal? What if it was literally part of the process? It was just worked in as part of the steps to getting to where you want to go. Right? So if I said, I have a step-by-step process, and the first step is you're probably gonna try this and fail. Like, it's okay. So what happened there? And you just look at it and you look at the neutral data. Like, you didn't hit your numbers for a campaign, in a marketing campaign, for example, and you look at that and just focused on seeking out the information that you needed instead of shaming yourself or beating yourself up for something that didn't go the way that you planned. Number 4. What if failure was neutral? So what if you separated out all the facts of the failure, like the numbers, your boss's exact words, for example, but just the facts, and use that for information as to what you would do next time? No drama, no I'm not good enough, or I didn't make the cut, or I'm never going to be able to do this, or I'm not cut out for this, or I don't have the skills, or I'm not good enough. None of that. Just okay, what went wrong? Why? How do we prevent it? So super cut and dry. If you could just separate all the emotion and all the facts, failure doesn't actually mean anything except for what you make it mean. It only makes you feel bad when you make it mean something about you, your capability, your ability as a human, your worth. It only feels really, really bad when you make it feel when you make it. Something about you. And sometimes we do that, and that's okay. I have another video that I just created called Dealing with a Professional Failure, that kind of a failure where it really affects you badly. Because I've been through that too, where you fail and you're like, okay, I can't get over this failure. This is really hard to get over. That's true too. But what I want to bring to your attention is that we can fail every day, and we're learning, and we're stepping towards our success. Yes, some failures are really big and they might feel like they're career debilitating. They're not, but yes, they can feel bad. But I'm talking about failing on a day-to-day basis. It's not a big deal. Didn't hit your numbers? Okay, go back and look, figure it out, try again. So if this video resonated with you, you'd like to learn more, subscribe to the channel. Give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Leave me a comment. It's the only way I get to know you guys. If you don't know me, I'm Natalie Fisher. Career and business mindset coach. And if you've got goals, you want to get a new job, a promotion, you want to start a side business, or you've got a business, you want to get it to a certain level, I can help you achieve that. I've got a free workshop that'll help you get started with me. It's called How to Get Any Result You Want Even If Nothing You've Tried Up Until Now Has Worked Yet. I used to be there. On this deep dive workshop, you're going to get the 2 main components to success. Okay? The 2 main components that are going to be make or break your success with whatever you're trying to accomplish right now. You're going to get the key coaching tool that I use to work with my clients to work through any problem that they're facing right now and how to solve it. How your thinking and what you're doing on a day-to-day basis is creating the results that you have right now in your life and how to change those results if you're not getting what you want right now. And the next steps to move you forward right now immediately and how we might be able to work together in order to help you achieve what you want the most. So I look forward to seeing you on that workshop. If you want to sign up, click below. There's a link below, and I've got a bunch of other free resources for you as well. And I will see you in a few days with a new video. Thanks so much for watching. Bye! If you either need Okay, there, there's my screw-up. Each time we fail, we get closer to success and we learn something, even if we don't— Okay, there's lots of good ones. There's lots of good ones here.
