What is the benefit of failure experience

The difference in reaction to failure is especially noticeable when it comes to babies. Fortunately, they are persistent and determined, otherwise we would never have learned to walk, talk and do anything else.

Imagine four kids who are solving the same problem: they are trying to open a box by sliding a large button to the left. The first kid pulls the button, but the box itself moves, the kid cannot reach it now. Then he turns away and starts playing with the diaper.

The second kid fiddles with the button for a few seconds, but he does not succeed. He sits on the floor and glares at the box. His lower lip trembles, but he doesn’t make any more effort.

The third baby pulls the button with force. Failure. But he does not give up and after 10 minutes of trial and error he achieves his goal. The lid opens and a bear jumps out of the box. The kid screams with delight, pushes the bear back, after which everything repeats. The fourth child sees another child open the box. He blushes, hits the box with his fist, and bursts into tears.

Sometimes failure makes us perceive the goal as unrealistic and unattainable, so that we give it up without thinking twice (like the first baby who forgot about the box when he could not reach it).

Others lose heart and lose the ability to do anything, become passive and helpless (like a second baby who just sat and watched). Still others keep trying until they get their way. Finally, some of us become depressed and lose our ability to think clearly.

There are people who take failure lightly, but many take it to heart. Failures always hurt and disappoint us, but they can also provide us with valuable information, teach us useful things, and help us grow and develop. Thanks to them, next time we are more likely to avoid mistakes and increase our chances of achieving our goal.

Three psychological wounds from failure

Failure inflicts three wounds on us that need urgent treatment while they are not yet deep. They hurt self-esteem by making us draw the wrong conclusions about our abilities. They undermine our self-confidence, motivation and optimism. Finally, they give rise to fears that make it difficult to move towards the goal. To get into a vicious circle, one or two unpleasant incidents are enough.

Dwarf self-image

Baseball players often claim that when they hit well, the ball feels unusually large (and therefore easier to hit). Failure not only turns our goal into an Everest that only a few can climb, but also “shrinks” us. We begin to seem to ourselves less intelligent, less attractive than before.

For example, if a student did not pass the winter session well, he begins to doubt his abilities, and the subjective complexity of the academic discipline increases. Many freshmen decide to drop out after a bad session (especially if they acted like a first baby as a child).

If our six-year-old son failed a spelling test and called himself the ultimate loser, we would immediately tell him that this is not the way to talk about yourself. But we rarely use the same logic when it comes to our lives.

New Year’s promises

These promises, as a rule, do not live up to February, and we jump to conclusions: “again, failure, I’m too lazy to do anything serious.” As a result, we begin to treat ourselves even worse than on the eve of the New Year. But it’s all about lack of planning. Missing a start date is one of the most common goal setting mistakes.

Another typical mistake that puts an end to New Year’s resolutions is the abundance of goals. I remember how Paulina, who was recently divorced and was raising two school-age children, flew into my office on the first day of the new year and proudly held out a piece of paper. “These are my plans,” she explained, “you advised me to take back control of my own life…”

The list included things like going to the gym 4 times a week and losing 10 kg, improving work performance, installing new wardrobes, painting the walls in the bedroom, making five new friends, joining a dating site and at least 2 dates a month. sommelier courses, devoting one day a month to volunteer work and allocating enough time to interact with children…

Paulina’s list was an explosive mixture of various errors: some plans clashed with others, some clearly lacked certainty, and others were too complicated. There was no program of action to overcome the obstacles and consequences of failure, without which no undertaking can do.

In general, we break promises to ourselves so often because we set the wrong goals. And not keeping promises, in turn, damages our self-esteem.

Fear of new failures

When we experience failure, we fall prey to our defeatist mood more often than we think. If we don’t get a promotion, we stop working hard because we believe that no matter how hard we try, we still won’t get promoted.

We sign up for a gym, get a minor injury, and conclude we can’t exercise. When a wife rejects our advances, we decide she doesn’t love us anymore. In each of these cases, failure convinces us that we have no chance of getting what we want, so there is no point in trying. Failure can be very persuasive.

It completely eludes us that our refusal to fight was the cause of the disappointment. Moreover, we do not realize that pessimism has hidden from our view the possibilities and paths that really exist.

For example, we didn’t know that we were second on the promotion list and if we continued to do well, we would be promoted next time. After reading the literature on training, we would make a plan that would help avoid injury.

Fear of failure causes us to put a spoke in our wheels, creating barriers to ourselves or exaggerating the complexity of goals. We unconsciously show great creativity in inventing various obstacles so that we have something to justify ourselves in case of failure.

How to Heal the Trauma of Failure

Failure negatively affects our self-esteem and self-confidence, and also inspires us with the idea that goals are unattainable. They distort our perception, instill a sense of hopelessness and make us give up.

When patients tell me about their major failures, I first express my sympathy and sincere support. Second, I help them see the lessons of this failure and use them for personal growth. But not everyone likes it.

Indeed, calls to see the good in the bad, when we have not yet moved away from disappointment, can cause misunderstanding and irritation. However, the most effective way to heal the psychological trauma of failure is to take advantage of it.

1. Failure is a great teacher

“I suffered one setback after another,” said inventor Thomas Edison. “Thanks to them, I learned about the existence of a thousand things that do not work.” Failure always tells us what needs to be changed in order to successfully complete a task.

2. Failure opens up new opportunities for us.

Henry Ford’s first two car companies went bankrupt. If it wasn’t for this, he might not have tried the assembly line idea that made him one of America’s richest men.

3. Failure makes us stronger

It makes us change something in ourselves, stop being passive, gain control over our lives.

When failures follow one after another, it may seem to us that we have no control over anything and are literally doomed to failure. Indeed, if we are convinced that nothing else depends on us, then most likely we will leave the game or will make a minimum of effort.

However, the tragedy of failure is that many of the beliefs and assumptions that lead us to conclude that we have no control over our lives are actually wrong.

In addition, changing our point of view and working on those aspects of the situation that are within our control gives us hope again, restores motivation and increases self-esteem. In some cases, it is enough to gain access to information that will refute our delusions in order to get out of a state of paralysis.

Read more in Guy Winch’s book Psychological First Aid (Potpourri, 2014).