Failure is a part of success, especially for women

Failure is a part of success, especially for womenFailure is a part of success, especially for womenIf youve never failed at something, how do you know when youre succeeding? For women that question is harder to answer because theyre less likely to allow themselves to fail, according to a recent article byU.S. News World Reportcalled, To Succeed, Women Must Learn to FailForward.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moraResearch has shown that women are judged more harshly for their mistakes than men and may respond by being more risk-averse, writes Linda Kramer Jenning, the author of the article. As a result, some women may not seize leadership opportunities and that worries those committed to achieving gender equity.The thing is, when you dont fail, you dont allow yourself to become stronger in that process, resulting in more resilience - which is a key part of being a successful leade r,accordingto a 2018 study on nurse managers published in the U.S. National Library of Medicine. But the stakes are so much higher for women to begin with, as just 6.4 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women - a number that is actually on the decline, per the Pew Research Centers 2017 datareport.Still, the benefits of failure go beyond resilience. For women, especially, being open about failure makes leaders more relatable and therefore effective. People appreciate that youre not perfect all the time, Jessica Grounds, co-founder ofMine the Gap, a firm that works with companies to close their gender gaps, told U.S. News. Grounds suggests that women build a trusted team in and out of the workplace who will give constructive criticism and coach them through a failure.That sentiment that failure is a powerful aspect of success has been echoed by handfuls of female leaders. Whenever you need a reminder on how to embrace failure and move forward stronger, bookmark this page to r evisit these wise words of advice from mega-successful women from Oprah to Thrives own Arianna HuffingtonOprah You are bound to stumble.It doesnt matter how far you might rise, Oprahsaidin 2013 at Harvards commencement address. At some point, you are bound to stumble. If youre constantly pushing yourself higher and higher, the law of averages predicts that you will at some point fall. And when you do, I want you to remember this There is no such thing as failure. Failure is just life trying to move us in another direction.J.K. Rowling Failure directed my energy into what matters.Likewise, at a 2008 Harvard commencement address, J.K. Rowling revealed that failure can even lead you down a path thats much more fulfilling than the one you were on before. Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential, shesaid, referencing the time before she allowed herself to pursue writing and pen theHarry Potterseries. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and b egan to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.Beyonc Youre never too good to lose.In thewordsof Beyonc The reality is, sometimes you lose. And youre never too good to lose, youre never too big to lose, youre never too smart to lose, it happens. And it happens when it needs to happen. And you have to embrace those things.Anna Wintour Everyone should be sacked at least once.EvenVogueeditor-in-chief Anna Wintour has talked about the importance of failure before,tellingAlastair Campbell in his 2015 book,Winners And How They Succeed,Everyone should be sacked at least once in their career because perfection doesnt exist. Its important to have setbacks because that is the reality of life.Lady Gaga Cry, then go kick some ass.When its not as easy to embrace those setbacks, though, you can remember this anecdote Lady Gaga t old about getting dropped from a record label. I remember when I got dropped from my first record label. I just said, Mommy, lets go landsee Grandma, Gaga toldMTVin 2011. And I cried on my grandmothers couch. She looked at me, and she goes, Im going to let you cry for the rest of the day, and then you have to stop crying, and you have to go kick some ass. Vera Wang Pick yourself right up and start again.Fashion designer Vera Wang pursued a career as an ice skater prior to entering fashion. When you fall down - which you have to do if you want to learn to be a skater - you pick yourself right up and start again, Wang toldBusiness of Fashionin 2013. You dont let anything deter you. Arianna Huffington Failure is a stepping stone to success.There is also plenty of wisdom to be gleaned from Thrives own Arianna Huffington, whorecalledin 2016, My mother kept telling my teenage self that failure is not the opposite of success, its a stepping stone to success. I think she would really enj oy how many times I had let myself fail along the way.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Just roll with it.During a discussion withGirls Who Code founder Reshma Saujani,the Congresswomanrecentlyadmitted, Every day I still feel like Im failing.But Ocasio-Cortez has said shes learned to just roll with it, adding, Im, like, Guess what, I made a mistake. Deal with it. Im trying, and youre not. So thats really the part that Ive gotten to.This article first appeared on Thrive.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally strong people