• Expect failure to be a part of your story: “Start to get comfortable with failure and understand that it is part of the process,” Charlotte Jones, founder of Business Scale Academy, told us. “It’s how you respond that shapes your journey and success.” Jones said that when you acknowledge your failures, you can “shift your perspective … and open up so many opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have spotted.” 
• Reframe your failures as short-term setbacks and learn from them: Rather than viewing your failures as a sign to give up, reframe them as temporary setbacks to help you learn from your mistakes. “Every failure carries a lesson; you just have to be open to it. Taking the time to debrief will help you pull out those learnings,” Jones said. When you understand where you went wrong, you can develop creative solutions to ensure you do things differently when confronted with the same problems in the future.
• Seek the advice of a mentor and connect with peers: Lindsay Hyde, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School who teaches aspiring entrepreneurs how to avoid startup failure, said founders “have very few people they can consult with as they are failing.” That’s why finding a community with mentors and peers is critical. Mentors have the advantage of hindsight and can impart the wisdom they gleaned from their own mistakes, while fellow entrepreneurs can “serve as a sounding board,” Hyde said. The right support network can help you make important connections to elevate your next venture and spur professional growth.
• Don’t stop believing in yourself: Rather than letting your failures drag you down, continue to tell yourself you have the skills and knowledge to succeed in the future. “Failure is hard for founders because their own identity and sense of self-worth are often intertwined with the business. Founders should work to see the business as separate from their own sense of self,” said Hyde.

What entrepreneurs can learn from failure

Learning from your failures is essential for setting yourself up for future success. Here are some of the lessons you should strive to take away from any rejections or missteps as you pursue your business goals:

• The role you played in the situation: Hyde said ego can drive founders to blame others or market factors for a company’s defeat. But “to maximize the learning value of experiencing a venture failure, entrepreneurs should take the time to reflect on their role in the failure of the business and get candid feedback from trusted advisors as to their role in it,” she said. 
• Whether your business concept or product has merit: A business idea is little more than a hypothesis. Whether that idea succeeds or fails is largely a reflection of your business model and how well you proved your concept. “The more that founders can sequence a series of small tests to validate or invalidate the need for their business, the better off [they] will be,” Hyde said.
• How resilient you are: From her own entrepreneurial failures, Jones said she “learned resilience — how to bounce back quickly, stay resourceful and adapt fast.” She then used those principles going forward to form the foundation of her next business. Without the stumbles, you may not build the strength you need to succeed.