One common Misconception:- We need to learn from our mistakes.
A corollary to this belief in the power of mistakes is our assumption that others’ successes provide great insight. The self-help section at any bookstore is full of books by high achievers like, say, Phil Night. We buy these books hoping his path to greatness will illuminate our own path.
But what if we’ve got it backward? As a culture do we exaggerate the benefits of our failures? And undervalue the power of our successes? And do we overestimate what the success of others can teach us, and downplay how instructive the failure of others can be?
Let's look at what learning from mistakes in the first place looks like,
1) We learn what not to do again,
2) We learn to face something that we feared once,
3) We might let other people acknowledge what didn't work for us,
4) We might take life the way it is and accept it for whatever it has for us,
But what we don't realize is that we still don't know what we have to do next? (unless we have plan B or C in place), We still have no clue what might have to happen for us to reach that goal.
Now let's just contrast that with learning from our success. Success gives us real ammunition. When something succeeds, we know what worked, we know how we pulled that off, and the next time we'll probably be able to do it even better.
Failure humanizes people. It brings them to our level, erasing the distance. Just as the failures of others teach us more than their successes, our own successes teach us more than our failures.
Failure is not a prerequisite for success. That shouldn't be a surprise, It's exactly how nature works. Evolution doesn't linger on past failures, it's always building upon what worked.
Comments