如何利用失敗成就自己？

Failure is an inevitable part of life, but smart people know how to make it work for them.
失敗是生活中不可避免的一部分，但聰明的人知道如何利用它們。

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.
通向成功的障礙之一是害怕失敗。害怕失敗比失敗本身更可怕，因爲它譴責你過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.
對失敗最成功的迴應在於你的方法。在《實驗社會心理學雜誌》最新發表的一篇研究中，研究人員發現，勇於面對挫折的成功感來源於對結果的關注（你希望實現的事），而不是儘量避免失敗。儘管每個人對於失敗都帶有一種僥倖的心理，但這麼做的人往往比那些樂觀專注於自己目標的人更容易失敗。

"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." --Winston Churchill“
成功就是不斷失敗卻不失信心。”——溫斯頓·丘吉爾

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.
聽起來相當容易和直觀，但當失敗的後果很嚴重時就很難做到了。研究人員同時發現積極的反饋提升了人們成功的機會，因爲當你只關注自己的目標時，它會加深你的樂觀感。

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."
創造歷史的人（真正的革新者）會更進一步，把失敗當做成功的墊腳石。托馬斯·愛迪生是一個很好的例子，他嘗試了1000次去發明可用的燈泡。當有人問他失敗1000次是什麼感覺時，他回答說，“我沒有失敗1000次，燈泡是一個經歷了1000個步驟的發明。”

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.
正是這種態度，把成功和失敗的差別分的一清二楚。托馬斯·愛迪生不是唯一一個。J.K.羅琳的《哈利·波特》原稿在被12家出版社拒絕之後纔有人接受，即便是那時她只得到了名義上的預付款。因爲對於自己的故事過於情緒化，奧普拉·溫弗瑞丟了她在巴爾的摩新聞主播的工作，這個品質後來變成了她的標誌。亨利·福特在生產出可行的汽車原型前兩次失去了他的金融支持者。這樣的例子不勝枚舉。

"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." --Henry Ford“
如果你認爲自己能做一件事，那你就能做到；如果你認爲自己不能做一件事，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.
那麼，向失敗低頭的人和敢於利用失敗的人的區別是什麼呢？其中一些歸因於你怎麼做，另一些歸結於你怎麼想。

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.
面對失敗時你採取的行動對恢復能力是非常關鍵的，這些行動也深刻影響着別人怎樣看待你以及你的錯誤。當你失敗時，必須要採取這五個行動，它們能讓你在未來成功，也能讓其他人在你失敗時也積極地看待你。

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. 自己承認失敗。如果你犯了一個錯誤，不要祈禱沒人注意，因爲總有人會注意到，這是不可避免的。當別人指出你的失敗時，一個失敗就變成了兩個。如果你保持沉默，人們會好奇你爲什麼不說點什麼，他們會把你的沉默歸因於懦弱或是無知。

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. 給出解釋，但別找藉口。承認自己的錯誤能大大提升你的個人形象。這展示了自信、責任以及正直。一定要堅持事實。“我們丟了賬單，因爲我錯過了截止日期”是原因，“我們丟了賬單，因爲我的狗整個週末都在生病，所以我錯過了截止日期”是藉口。

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. 有解決問題的計劃。承認錯誤是一回事，但你不應該就此打住。接下來的做法是非常關鍵的。與其站在那裏，等別人幫你收拾爛攤子，不如自己去想解決辦法。如果你能告訴你的老闆（或其他人）爲了讓事情回到正軌你已經採取了哪些具體措施就更好了。

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. 有預防措施。除了有擺平事情的計劃，你還應該有預防同樣事情再次發生的計劃。這是人們從失敗中吸取教訓的最好方法。

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. 重新開始。別讓失敗把自己變軟弱是非常重要的。這是一個讓你變得很糟糕的心態，並且每次跌倒時都妨礙你站起來。花足夠的時間從失敗中吸取教訓，一旦完成，立刻重新開始並再次嘗試。等待只會延長糟糕的感覺，並且增加了你失去勇氣的機會。

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.
你面對失敗時的態度和你採取的行動同樣重要。把失敗變成自己的優勢需要情商的兩種特徵：韌性和精神力量。當你失敗時，有這三種態度你會想要保持。

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. 思維方式是處理失敗時最重要的因素。擅長在失敗中振作起來的人習慣於把失敗歸咎於自己做過的一些事，如錯誤的行動或是具體的疏忽，而不是事情本身。那些不善於處理失敗的人傾向於把失敗歸因於他們的懶惰、不聰明或者其他個人原因，這暗示了他們對局面沒有掌控力。這使得他們更容易避免未來的冒險行爲。

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. 樂觀是人們從失敗中振作起來的另一個重要特徵。英國一份關於576名連續創業者的研究發現，相比於第一次失敗就放棄的創業者，他們更希望獲得成功。這種樂觀的態度能讓人不把失敗當做永遠的相反，由於失敗所提供的教訓，他們傾向於把每次失敗看作是最終成功的組成部分。

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. 堅持不懈。樂觀是積極向上的感覺，堅持是你做事情的方法。在行動中保持樂觀。當大家都說，“夠了”並且決定放棄回家的時候，堅持不懈的人會擺脫這些失敗繼續向前。堅持不懈的人是特殊的，因爲他們的樂觀永遠都在。這使得他們擅長從失敗中崛起。

Bringing It All Together
綜上所述

Failure is a product of your perspective. What one person considers a crushing defeat another sees as a minor setback. The beauty is that you can change how you see failure so that you can use it to better yourself.
失敗是你個人觀點的產物。一個人認爲是慘敗，另一個人可能認爲只是小挫折。美妙之處在於你可以改變對失敗的看法，以便你能利用它成就更好的自己。