A lot of businesses are started everyday with people coming up with new and different ideas to provides products and services. Unfortunately, only a few of this companies actually make it big.

Most of the successful entrepreneurs we have once had a failed business. For example, Bill Gates and Paul Allen’s first venture was the Traf-O-Data, which sold just one unit before the business dissolved.

Statistics shows that while most new businesses (80%) survive their first year, only half of them will still exist five years down the road. What is the problem, you may ask.What separates successful entrepreneurs is their view that failures are merely opportunities to learn important lessons about businesses.

You have to realize that failure is an opportunity to take all you’ve learned and apply it to a new venture or role. You have to get back up and move forward. Always keep in mind that there is a lot of risks involved with being an entrepreneur and taking failures with a shift in perspective can result in greater success in the end.

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Accepting failure in business is not easy, infact it comes with challenges like financial hardship, damaged relationships, and a strong challenge to your confidence.

With all these challenges, business failure is not a good time. But here are some steps you can take to help you accept the failure and move on after a business failure.

Find out why you Failed

When your business fail, you hardly have the mental strength to think about what just happen. But it is important for you to analyze your failure, figure out why things went wrong, and determine the biggest contributing factors.

To help you properly analyze the situation, ask yourself this questions, What did you want to accomplish when it started? What did you ultimately achieve? What did you create? Were you out of touch with your customers? Was your product or service truly unique in the marketplace? Did you effectively communicate your value propositions?

When your carrying out this analysis, try to carry along your any partners or employees. The reason is that You may have a crucial blind spot that led to the demise of the business.

You’ll need someone else to help you understand how and why those blind spots affected the business. It can help to bring in a neutral moderator to ensure this conversation stays civil.

Be balanced in your analysis. You don’t want to dwell on your past failures, but if you don’t pause to collect insights, you’re bound to make the same mistakes again.

Once you have a clearer idea of what went wrong, it’ll be easier to decide whether to tweak your original idea and start over, or whether you should scrap the whole project and start a new idea from scratch.

Prepare for the Next Stage

Remember that a failed business is not a failed life. In view of this, consider failure as nothing more than an opportunity to reflect and adapt. This is the point where you need to consider whether you want to continue as an entrepreneur of you want to look for a job.

Decide Whether You Need a Full-Time Job

Even after your business has failed, it is possible for you to still have the passion to start another business immediately. But relax and give it sometime because you are prone to errors at the moment.

You need to go through a self-evaluation to determine whether or not that’s a reasonable (and responsible) decision. If you have a family that depends on your income or accrued a large amount of outstanding debt from your last venture, taking a steady full-time job may be the best course of action—at least for the immediate future.

Ignite your Passion again

Experiencing a business failure is an emotional blow to even the steeliest entrepreneurs, but you can’t get stuck down in the dumps. Take this chance to reinvigorate your passion for entrepreneurship.

As you’re giving your business its post-mortem, take note of any tasks that personally brought you joy and those that felt like a drag. Planning for how to maximize the joyful tasks and minimize the dragging ones can help you get genuinely excited to dive into your next business.

Mentors can help jumpstart this process. Listen to them talk about what gets them excited about their business, then share where you’re at with your career. They’ll likely have helpful business tips, along with some ideas for how to blow off steam and stay positive.

Surround yourself with people that will help you grow

Find a mentor, take a class or attend a seminar but allow yourself to continue learning. The more you learn, the more value you bring, which results in you being ready to take on a new opportunity. 

Failure can be daunting at first, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Bouncing back is possible, but it does take conscious effort and the decision to accept and move forward. Learn, adapt and keep working towards your dreams.

Avoid taking business failure personally

The success of a business isn’t easily predicted, and unexpected circumstance can take place at any time. The point is to be fluid and adaptable. The better you can accept and allow for change, the easier you can recover from a business failure or a big change that takes place.

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Embrace Your Failure

The only people who fail are the people who take risks, and you should be proud to count yourself part of that group. Don’t allow failure to diminish your self-confidence or wipe out your lofty ambitions. You will have to take more risks if you want to truly succeed.

Author John Maxwell is credited with saying, “Fail early, fail fast, but always fail forward.” His point is that failure is a blessing, so long as you embrace the lessons learned and keep progressing.

Don’t be ashamed of past failures or afraid to encounter future ones. Instead, celebrate the ride you took with your past business and look forward to all the adventures in store for the future!