Is Simon Cowell losing his touch? This was a question posed in one of the British tabloids this week. Failure is not a word that you would generally associate with Simon Cowell but the music mogul hasn’t had the best of years.

Despite reputedly spending 20 million on TV adverts to launch the US version of X Factor, the programme failed to pull in the number of viewers that Cowell had said would be a measure of success. What with the sacking of Cheryl Cole, (a far bigger story in the UK than the US), the unimpressive and not particularly popular Nicole Scherzinger who replaced Cole as a judge and the blandness of host Steve Jones nothing seems to have gone right. And that's without the meltdown of young contestants.

The UK X Factor which has been phenomenally successful in previous years has also been dogged with controversy. Cowell who normally thrives on the controversy because it means people are talking about his programmes is reported to be less than impressed that along with the controversy the viewing figures have dropped by 4 million viewers. Even worse, for the first time the programme was consistently beaten in the ratings by one of the BBC’s most successful programmes Strictly Come Dancing.

Along with a couple of his other TV ventures that have been less successful than hoped several commentators have described 2011 as Cowell’s annus horribilus (horrible year). However most people expect him to bounce back with a vengeance.

Cowell is a canny businessmen and a recognised genius in his field so I have no doubt he will have learnt the lessons of this year’s failures and be working on what’s going to be different for 2012. I imagine that he follows the Mary Pickford (American Film Actress) school of thought that 'failure is not the falling down but the staying down' and that if mistakes have been made, there's always an opportunity to make a fresh start .

So if you’ve had your own annus horribilus whether that be in your work life or home life or both what are you going to do to bounce back from any ‘failures’ in 2012? Here are some suggestions.

• Identify what you can learn from the previous year and then let it go. Thinking ‘if only’ is counterproductive and a waste of your energy.

• Have a vision about where you want to be in the next 12 months and set yourself some goals. How specific you want to be is up to you (I use SMART goals – but I accept they don’t work for everyone) However, I would certainly write your goals down so you have a record of what you’re working towards.

• Understand your own and others expectations. Miscommunication, different expectations inevitably lead to misunderstandings and unnecessary stress.

• Be prepared to take risks because if you worry about ‘failing’ then you'll constantly be putting up barriers preventing your own success.

• Be prepared for failure. No this isn’t about being a pessimist, but it is about knowing that things could go wrong and understanding what resources (internal and external) you might need to ‘bounce back’ as quickly as possible.

• Be positive and keep focussed on your future success.

Good luck for 2012