In this episode, Sarah talks about a topic that every leader faces but few like to discuss -failure. She explores why it feels so uncomfortable, what’s really going on in your brain when you fail, and four practical ways you can reframe, recover, and grow stronger from failure -so it becomes fuel for your success, not a roadblock.

Show Notes

[00:00:00] – Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable

[00:02:30] – Why We Struggle with Failure

• The higher you rise, the greater the perceived risk.
• Failure feels more personal and visible for women in leadership.
• Internal fears (imposter syndrome, self-doubt, confidence dips).
• External factors (organizational culture, risk aversion).
• The impact of gender conditioning — women are socialized to “get it right.”
• The double bind: be strong but not too strong; warm but not weak.
• The representation pressure women feel when there are fewer female leaders at the top.

[00:07:30] – Sarah’s Personal Failures and Lessons Learned

From HR initiatives that didn’t land, to failed business launches and missed job opportunities -Sarah shares how she’s learned to view failure as part of growth rather than something to avoid.

[00:08:30] – The Benefits of Failing

Failure can:

• Build resilience and risk tolerance
• Offer powerful learning and clarity
• Strengthen leadership authenticity
• Model a growth mindset for your team and organization

[00:10:00] – Four Ways to Get More Comfortable with Failure

1. Rewrite Your Failure Narrative
2. Understand the Neuroscience of Failure
3. Use Positive Psychology to Reframe Failure
4. Build Self-Compassion

[00:16:30] – Start Small & Build Your Risk Resilience

Experiment with low-stakes risks to grow your confidence over time. Failure tolerance is a muscle - the more you stretch it, the stronger it gets.

[00:17:00] – Quote to Inspire You

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games.

26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot — and missed.

I’ve failed over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

— Michael Jordan

[00:17:30] – Final Thoughts & Coaching Invitation

Sarah encourages listeners to see failure as an essential part of leadership growth.If you’d like to explore your own relationship with failure and unlock your next level of confidence and success, book a Career Breakthrough Call with Sarah.

Useful Links

Free Break Free From Imposter Syndrome Webinar

Sign up for Weekly Career Inspiration

Learn about Leadership & Advancement Coaching Programmes

Book a Free 121 Clarity Call

Join The Love What You Do Facebook Group

Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

Rate & Review the Podcast

If you found this episode of Unstuck & Unstoppable helpful, please do rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

If you're kind enough to leave a review, please do let Sarah know so she can say thank you. You can always reach her at: sarah@careertreecoaching.co.uk

Welcome to Unstuck and Unstoppable,

the podcast for ambitious female

2

leaders who want to create more impact,

income, and influence in their careers.

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feel connected to their passion

and purpose, but without

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selling out or burning out.

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I'm Sarah Archer, a leadership coach

and career strategist, helping women

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like you thrive in leadership roles

while staying true to your values.

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I'm the founder of CareerTree

Coaching and have over 15 years of

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coaching experience and significant HR

leadership experience to share with you.

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I know as a female leader it can

be hard to find time to focus

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on your career aspirations.

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The day job can be all consuming.

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Plus, no matter how senior you are,

there are always going to be times

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when you feel stuck, when you have

self doubt, or feel like an imposter.

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And that's where unstuck

and unstoppable comes in.

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Each week I'll be sharing practical

strategies, insightful interviews and

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inspiring stories to help you boost

your confidence, lead with purpose

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and achieve sustainable success.

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If you're ready to stop playing

small and unlock the incredible

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potential you have within you and feel

unstoppable, you're in the right place.

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Let's get started.

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Welcome to episode 49.

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I'm so pleased you're here with me

and I'm feeling very excited today

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I'm recording this in advance because

when you are actually going to be

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listening to this, I'm going to

be in Spain on a business retreat.

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I'm so looking forward to spending

time with some other amazing coaches

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and just having four days to have

some fun, but also think about, , my

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coaching business, my coaching practice.

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And, the topic for today is kind of

linked to that because I was thinking

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about this and I've failed definitely

loads of times in my business, which

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I do talk about in this episode.

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And have had to get comfortable with

failure, and that's why this topic

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today is to help you as a female leader,

just get a bit more comfortable with

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things not going exactly to plan.

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And I'd love to know from you if you

find this episode helpful, so please do.

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Message me or leave a review,

that would be fantastic.

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I hope you enjoy just trying to

get a bit more comfortable with

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failure in your leadership career.

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I think it's something we don't talk

about enough because we don't want to.

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Feel vulnerable share

our failures necessarily.

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And I think as a leader, the more

senior we get in the organization.

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The more our appetite for failing reduces

because the stakes can feel higher.

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It feels riskier to fail because the

ripples can, you can feel that it's not

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just you, that it might impact your team,

it might impact your peers, it might

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impact the business in terms of results.

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And so failure feels a much

bigger, riskier thing to embark on.

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Are you willing to fail to try something

that might fail in your current career?

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Gimme a yes or a no.

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If you are thinking about doing something,

but you're holding back, holding yourself

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back 'cause you're worried about failing.

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I think it's important to talk about

it because I think that normalizes

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it . Lots of the people that I work

with, lots of the women leaders

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that I work with, , experience.

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A lot of the things we're gonna

talk about today in terms of why

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failure can , make us feel really

uncomfortable, , can feel really hard.

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And there's lots of things at play.

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It's very complex.

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When I was preparing for this session,

I was thinking, gosh, this is actually

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quite a few sessions worth, but I'm

gonna try and to sell it into one session

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with some practical things about how

you can get more comfortable with it.

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We've got external.

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Things that play into why we

feel uncomfortable about failure.

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That can be, what's the

organization that you are in,

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what's their approach to failure?

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Are they very risk averse?

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Does that can impact on how you

feel about experimenting with things

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that might not work first time?

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And also we've got all the internal

stuff, which is gonna be different

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for different people, but some of

this I'm sure will resonate with you.

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There's a lot of fear around failure.

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That could be fear around what other

people might think about you if you fail

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might be fear about what the implications

of failure might be for your career.

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And fear about exposing

yourself or the imposter.

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Feelings play in when you're

thinking about doing something

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that could make you vulnerable.

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Also that self-doubt and just

your general level of confidence.

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If you're not feeling hugely

confident in your career, then

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you are less likely to take risks.

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And we've got the whole risk

bias issue as well in that we all

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have a risk bias in our brain.

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But some people's risk bias is

high, which means you focus on the

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things that could go wrong more

than the things that could go right.

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And if you've got a high risk bias,

then you are less likely to want to

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pursue opportunities that could fail.

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Because you can see all the things that

could go wrong and where it might lead to.

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Then we've got our narrative, the

story we tell ourselves about failure.

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And this can be rooted in

our early experiences in

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childhood, in our early career.

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And that's the narrative we tell

ourselves before we embark on

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something that could be risky.

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And it could be, it's also the narrative

that we tell ourselves after that.

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Thing hasn't gone to plan.

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And that can be dangerous because

it can then impact our existing

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confidence in sense of self and

we're gonna come onto that as well.

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Then we've got the issues

around things like the cultural

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conditioning and gender expectations.

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Girls conditioned generally to be nice,

to please people to do the right thing.

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Play by the rules where boys are

encouraged to be more risky, to be bolder.

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And this can play into that deep fear

of failure because it threatens our

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identity of having to get things right,

which has been reinforced for us.

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And that's one of the

things that can also.

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Play into why we find

failure uncomfortable.

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We've also got the double bind

as female leaders in that we have

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to be strong, but not too strong.

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We have to be nice and warm and

welcoming, but not being seen as weak.

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And therefore failures can feel

more visible and more personal

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because we're already navigating

a lower margin of acceptability.

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, Women.

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Female leaders when they fail, can be

judged more harshly than their male

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counterparts, which could also play into

why you don't want to push yourselves to

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do things where it could end be failure.

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Then we've got this thing called

representation pressure, which is

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probably more unconscious, but where

there are fewer women in senior

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leadership, and therefore that burden

of representation can feel real.

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So that if we.

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Fail.

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We feel not that we are just failing in

terms of ourselves and letting ourselves

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down, we might also feel that it's a blow

to mis progress, which is a huge burden to

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carry around, even if the unconscious one.

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So you can see why the whole failure piece

can be really complicated and feel quite,

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tricky to navigate your way through it.

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I've failed a lot.

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I can hold my hand up.

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I haven't always been comfortable with

it and I haven't always learned from

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it particularly in my earlier career.

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But definitely in hr I've had

initiatives that have failed.

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I've had things that haven't landed well.

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I know there are things where I didn't

do the groundwork for those initiatives

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to be accepted and to be successful.

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I failed personally when I've gone

for interviews that I haven't got,

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when I felt that job was my job.

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I've done business launches in my

career that have failed, have bombed

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I've taken decisions which haven't.

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Delivered what I wanted them to

deliver, but I've put a lot of work

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in to get more comfortable with that.

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'cause in your business, you have to do

it because if you want your business to

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be successful, you have to take risks.

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So I have put the work in to be able

to see failure in a different way.

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And some of that I'm gonna

share with you today.

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Because there are benefits to failing

which might sound counterintuitive, but

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there are, because obviously we know that

we grow through experimentation, through

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failing as well as through success.

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It's lots of learning there in terms of

our personal development, if we stay in

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our comfort zone, that's a great place.

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It's comfortable room, but

it's, where we get stuck there.

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Move forward and grow.

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And also failing allows us to be clearer

about the path to success next time.

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Plus it helps us to develop stronger

risk resilience so that we know that we

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can cope if things don't go well, and

we can develop that resilience to enable

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us to have another go, to try something

again and increase our optimism about.

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The success that we're gonna have

next time because we've learned

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from the thing that didn't go well.

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Also as leaders, as female leaders, we

do need to role model experimentation and

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failure being okay to our teams to enable

them to grow, to increase their capability

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and their performance in the organization.

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To create a culture that enables people

to think, I can try this because the

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repercussions are not going to be me

losing my job if it doesn't go well.

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Because I know that will help

the business grow by me building

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my capability and skills.

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Obviously, building your team's

capability and skills is gonna enable

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the business to be more successful.

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So there are lots of benefits to failing,

so reasons to get comfortable with it.

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Now I'm gonna talk you through

four ways that you can experiment

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with to get more comfortable.

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Choosing the ones that are

gonna resonate most with you.

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The first one is to rewrite the failure

narrative, because what tends to happen

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when we fail is, and particularly for

women, is that we internalize that

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failure into an identity based failure.

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So I failed rather than something failed.

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Rather than seeing it as situational.

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Event, something that happened that

didn't work well we internalize it and

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we might say things like, I messed up.

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I failed.

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I'm terrible at this.

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I let them down.

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Rather than saying, that strategy

didn't land I'm still learning

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this scale, or, I'm human.

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We all make decisions with the

best information we have at time.

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So being able to place it in the

external context of the situation failed

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rather than I failed, can be a really

powerful way of getting more comfortable

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with it and protecting our internal

self-identity or internal confidence.

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Not letting that failure erode that

'cause we don't want that to happen.

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'cause otherwise you start to see

yourself as somebody who fails.

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We want to see ourselves as somebody who

experiments and learns from that and can

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understand the situation and the impact

of that situation on that success or not.

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If you start to notice you are using

I to describe the failure as in,

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I failed, I messed up, et cetera.

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You want to be able to flip that

to let me understand the situation,

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what went wrong with that situation,

what didn't land, what didn't

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happen, rather than it being I.

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It's not about absolving

responsibility, it's about not

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letting it become an identity crisis,

and eroding your inner confidence.

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The second thing is to understand

the neuroscience of failure

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because failure is wired.

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Like a threat for the brain.

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And we know our brain cannot distinguish

between physical danger and social risk.

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And social risk, is around failure,

rejection, all those things.

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And what happens is that our

amygdala and our limbic brain, it's

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activated when it senses a threat.

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And that's that fight

flight or freeze response.

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And what we want to be able to do is

to recognize that's what's happening.

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Recognizing that anxiety that

you're feeling is a response to

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the limbic brain being activated

and to be able to use tools to calm

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yourself down in that situation.

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So naming it is part of that.

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Okay.

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I know that I'm being triggered

here and that's why I'm

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feeling this level of anxiety.

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And what I might need to do then is

to do some breathing exercises or

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some mindfulness meditation techniques

if that's what works for you, or to

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think about engaging the prefrontal

cortex of the brain through things

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like coaching, journaling, reflection

that help move it from an emotional

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response in the limbic system into

a more logical processing response.

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And that will then help you to respond to.

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The failure or whatever's gone

wrong in a much more considered way.

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Being able to notice what's going

on, to understand the neuroscience

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of failure and to be able to

respond to it in a logical way.

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Then the third approach is tapping

into positive psychology and seeing

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failure as a route to flourishing.

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And that tips into what I was

mentioning earlier about it

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helps us to build resilience.

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It helps us also to build that grit,

that tenacity, that perseverance to

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know that actually this failure is

part of me being successful in the long

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run and flourishing and growing and

seeing it as an opportunity for growth.

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That can be asking yourself great

coaching and reflection questions.

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Things like, what did I discover

about myself in that situation?

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What values were I connecting with when

I made that decision or that choice?

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And, what's the growth that

this opportunity is giving me?

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So being able to position it, using

questions like that can turn it from

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failure into it's part of my journey and

I'm going to use it in a productive way.

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And then the fourth thing

is to build self-compassion.

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And we need self-compassion as

female leaders because we tend to go

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to that inner critic that beats us

up, that taps into that, narrative

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that's about you failing, you being

rubbish, you messing up all of that.

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And what we want to do is to think

about, to really youthful question,

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is to think about what would I say

to my friend who's just experienced

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that particular failure at work?

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You're not gonna say to that

friend, you are rubbish.

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Why on earth did you do that?

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How stupid of you, you're gonna

be saying something that's more

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compassionate about, at least you tried.

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It's an opportunity to learn.

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Think about what you can take from

this situation and you were brave and

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courageous to try that out and think

about changing that inner self-talk

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to a more compassionate world.

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And you can also use.

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Physical symbols for self-compassion.

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So research shows that , , even

just stroking your hand can activate

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the soothing system in the brain,

or giving yourself a her way.

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Again, soothing yourself can be

a way to activate that soothing

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system in the brain that helps you

to feel better about the situation.

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Thinking about those four

different approaches and what you

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might want to experiment with.

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We've got rewriting that failure

narrative from an identity based

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failure to a situational based failure.

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Understanding the neuroscience of

failure that you are going to be

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potentially triggered by that because

the brain sees it as a threat.

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And then putting some techniques in

place to help you move from emotional,

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to a more logical response to failure.

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To recognize failure in the

terms of positive psychology.

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That's an opportunity for growth.

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To build resilience, to build

tenacity and perseverance, and

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then to build self-compassion

into your failure strategy.

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What I would always say to you if

you're thinking about experimentation

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here, is to start small.

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Choose something where there is a

chance that you might fail, but it's

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a small chance it has low risk where

you can build up your risk resilience.

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You can then move closer

to taking bigger risks.

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In the business.

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When I say risks, this is all in terms

of understanding the risk and managing

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it and being able to understand what

the the implications might be of the

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decisions that you're making, but

starting small and build it up to it.

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And I want to leave you with a great

quote which I love in terms of failure.

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It's from Michael Jordan, the basketball

player, and he said, I've missed

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more than 9,000 shots in my career.

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I've lost almost 300 games, 26 times.

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I've been trusted to take the

game winning shot and missed.

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I've failed over and over again in

my life, and that's why I succeed.

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I think that's just such a powerful

quote and approach to failure.

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I really hope you're gonna take

something positive away from today's

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session that's gonna help you feel more

comfortable as a leader around failure.

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And if there's anything I've touched on

today that you think I would really value

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some coaching support to go deeper into

some of this and look at how I can embrace

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failure and stop holding myself back

in terms of my career or my leadership

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approach, then please do get in touch

with me for a career breakthrough call if

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that's something you feel would be useful.

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We can have a 30 minute call to look at.

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What you might need to do to move

closer to feeling more comfortable

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with failure in your leadership career.

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Thank you very much for joining me.

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Thank you so much for listening

to this episode of the Unstuck

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and Unstoppable podcast.

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I have lots of free resources you

can access on my website, ww.career

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tree coaching.co

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uk, and I'll also put

links in the show notes.

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If you found this episode

helpful, then please subscribe

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so you don't miss the next one.

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And please do share it with a

friend and leave me a review

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and I will personally thank you.

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Remember, you're capable of more

than you know, shine brightly.

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Lead boldly and unlock the

extraordinary potential within you.

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Be unstoppable.