Redefining Failure
En castellano: Redefinir el fracaso
In italiano: Ripensare il fallimento
Children’s journey to their first standing steps is as joyful to me as Beethoven’s ninth. They pull themselves up, they stand, they fall, they crawl for a bit, and they try again. Hour after hour they practice, they discover the geography of their bodies, punctuated by their own grammar of giggles, gurgles, and outright laughter, as they delight in the absurdity of their game. Until suddenly, a miracle happens: baby erectus is ready to conquer space.
It is an incredible learning experience, the primordial zero-to-one journey, and yet it is filled with joy. Exploration and discovery are their own rewards, external approval only an unintended byproduct.
From the Joy of Learning to Fear of Failure
When is that joy in learning lost? When does it become a stressful chore? While there may be many concurrent factors, one thing is certain: at some point we feel the pressure to perform, stumbling blocks are labeled as failure, where an objective not achieved at the first pass is a permanent condition that reflects on the person: I have failed, I am a failure.
That is when fear of failure begins to set in; we worry about what others will say, their judgement a threatening cloud looming on the horizon. We thus start restricting our scope of action, we stick to what we know, playing to our strengths and trying to second guess the algorithm that will get us to success without trial and error. We begin telling ourselves “I am not good at... math/writing/sports/music”, we are quick to abandon the paths in which we do not immediately excel, we quickly forget the promise of enjoyment that first drew us to that same path. And at every failure, at every road not taken out of fear, we love ourselves a little less.
A Short-Term Strategy that Impoverishes in the Long Run
The strategy may work in the short term, the safer road leads to consistently high grades, to clear career choices, to an easier definition of self. The apparent success, however, covers an insidious undercurrent that has dire long-term consequences; step by step, as we play it safe, as we leverage our more obvious strengths, we lose our confidence in our ability to learn new things, we relinquish the joy of discovering new geographies of the mind, and we do not build the resilience that ‘good failure’ provides. This happens below the surface, concealed by apparent achievement, but also accompanied by high levels of stress.
Failure can be uncomfortable, frustrating, enraging even, and it carries a moral judgement that can be crushing. However, if we deprive ourselves of the ability to fail, and try again, learning something new every time, we will end up with very small dreams, our lives safe but opaque.
The Power of “Yet”
What would happen if we were to redesign the definition of failure? If instead of saying “I have not succeeded” we added the word “yet”? “I have not succeeded yet”, “I have not mastered this topic yet”, “I have not understood this problem yet”... and a whole world of possibilities opens up. Failure becomes a temporary state, pregnant with the promise of better things to come. “Yet” is the crack that lets that powerful ally, humour, in; with “yet” we can laugh at our mistakes, acknowledge them, own them, and dissect them so we can do better the next time.
With “yet” we are freed from the pressure of perfection, and we are empowered to try new ideas, to experiment. Being comfortable with our own fallibility helps us neutralize the terror of social stigma and learn to read the information that lies within that initial setback. At that point, the terrain ahead changes completely, so many roads to travel, so many ideas to engage with and to shape! And finally, we will encounter again the joy of those first baby steps.
And When We Cannot Go any Further...
A time may come when we are confronted with a truly unsurmountable obstacle, one that goes beyond our abilities regardless of effort and perseverance, when we will have to recognize that we have reached a limit. However, with the right approach to “failure”, we will have the courage to accept the truth and to enjoy what has been gained. We may discover that no matter how hard we try we cannot become Olympic athletes, but we will be better off for having tried.
If we are engaged in anything meaningful, some measure of failure is guaranteed; any successful athlete, musician, scientist or businessperson will confirm it. What matters is what we do with it. Let’s not rob our children of the privilege of failure. Let’s teach them instead to confront it, to learn from it, and to aspire to greater heights. Let’s unleash the power of failure!
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Great way of thinking about our greatest fear and making it a journey vs. a permanent label.
This is a brilliant piece of work Silvia! 2024 will be about "YET"
Buon anno!