Share your #failurestories with your kids.
Let them know that you have fallen down, broken apart AND survived.
Not only survived, but that some of your biggest challenges lead you to some of the best things in your life right now.
(age-appropriately of course).
Yesterday, I was asked this question after a corporate talk on #Resilience
‘How do we build resilience in our tweens and teenagers?’.
Not a question I have been asked before, funnily enough
And I spoke about sharing with them your failures and setbacks – because kids don’t always listen to what you SAY but they are always watching, AND often imitating ?, what you DO.
It’s tough to do this as a parent:
– because you want them to see you as perfect, what if they don’t respect you any more?
– because your parents probably never shared their challenges with you
– because it means that you need to be vulnerable
I would be the first one to admit that – until fairly recently I was trying really hard to be supermom. Supermoms (or Superdads) don’t fail.
Until my kid started showing performance anxiety. And I realised where it was coming from (=ME!….and her Dad).
So we shared our own struggles with exams and other stuff …. and waited for the cookie to crumble.
It didn’t. It seemed to help. So we’re trying to be more conscious about sharing now.
We don’t always succeed. Sometimes it doesn’t help. Sometimes we just can’t share.
-We’re getting there. WITH our kids.
Why am I sharing this on a professional platform like #LinkedIn?
Because the exact same thing is happening in companies – as Team Leads, Managers, Leaders, we want #resilient teams.
BUT, we don’t want to share our own failures – we want to be seen as perfect. It’s not been done before AND it’s uncomfortable to be vulnerable.
Here’s the thing though, in companies too:
❇️ People don’t always follow what you SAY, they do what you DO.
Walk the Talk.
Share your failures and what you learnt. Build resilient teams.
Would love to hear from from – What are some things companies could do to make it easier to share failure?
And, If your company already has a practice, share here so we can all learn.
