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By Daniel Francis
Yes, you read the title correctly. Daniel Francis is telling you to document your failures. The first article for 2024 and this is where he starts?
There is a method to the madness so stay with me for a moment.
I write a lot about gratitude because it is important but what is also very important is data. Unfortunately, we humans are very forgetful, so data gets easily forgotten or misunderstood because we are unaccustomed to writing down important data. Also yes, your failures are important data points and let me tell you what I mean.
Looking back at 2023, I thought deeply about my accomplishments as I am sure many of you have as well. I also took a hard look at the difficult and low points during that year. I analysed my failures to find out what good came from them. For me, 2023 was a year to close some doors that needed to be closed which was difficult. The difficulty was not only in closing the doors but also in being uncertain of what other doors may or may not be presented to me.
In other words, the new opportunities that would appear to fill the new void.
God in His guidance decided to show me a video that coincidentally fit perfectly with my reflection of 2023 and I knew He wanted me to share this message with all of you.
Back to why you should document your failures. In the video, the individual was advocating for a failure journal. In this failure journal, you would unsurprisingly document your failure. It could be as small a failure as getting a bad grade or as big a failure as not getting the new job you applied for. Whatever the failure is you write it down but after you write it down, he prompts you to leave two blank spaces below what you have written.
After 30 days, the expectation is that you go back and in the first blank space answer the following question, “What did I learn about this thing?”
After three to six months, go back and in the second blank space answer the following question, “What is something good that came from the failure or what you learned?”
When I saw this video, I thought it was brilliant. This process if done consistently will help turn a negative into a positive. Not only that, it transfers the focus away from the negative emotions and onto data that you can use to better your circumstance.
Thinking back on the past year, some of the biggest failures that I experienced felt so overwhelmingly negative at the moment. Luckily, I try to find a lesson in all things.
I followed a process similar to what the person in the video suggested and it occurred to me that my biggest wins or accomplishments in 2023 came as a direct result of my proactively trying to learn from my failures.
It almost got me excited for my next big failure. However, this is only possible if you make sure to write down and track the data. Again, we tend to forget easily and hold on to negative emotions.
If you find that nothing much changes for you from year to year, maybe God is calling you to start the year off with something different. What better way to create a positive change than by using information that you compile yourself? Growth is easier when you can learn from past experiences and no easier way to remember these experiences than by writing them down and making note of the changes you will make along the way.
2024 can be a special one, so start the year right and start your failure journal.
Daniel Francis is a millennial helping other millennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a Self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.
IG: rebitlimited
LinkedIn: Daniel Francis
