Linda Blair The art of failing well

It’s often said we’re more risk-averse nowadays, more cautious, more careful not to fail. In both the workplace and in education, the emphasis is on achieving good results, rather than on learning and becoming wiser. In fact, this attitude is so pervasive that many of us have become frightened of ever failing.

Is this a healthy attitude? Research in both business and education suggests not.

In a study carried out at Bilkent University in Turkey and Ghent University in Belgium, Aikaterini Michou and colleagues questioned more than 1,000 high school and university students about their motivation to learn and the learning strategies they used.

The students who were afraid to fail were more likely to set goals that allowed them to feel better about themselves, rather than to pursue new interests or enhance development. They were also less likely to use the most effective learning strategies.

Joachim Brunstein and Peter Gollwitzer at the Universities of Erlangen and Konstanz in Germany conducted an experiment where they told a group of young adults they’d failed on the first of two tasks (irrespective of actual test scores). Those who had been told the task was a test of their competence and promise in their chosen field – either medicine or computer science – were more likely to do better on the second task than were those who were told the initial task was irrelevant to their future career. It seems that when an individual fails in an area that’s important to them, that failure can become a motivator, rather than a deterrent.

Sim Sitkin at Duke University considered a number of businesses, some that had been repeatedly successful and others that had suffered failures. He concluded that, in business, continual success was associated with growing complacency, decreased attentiveness and less interest in inventing new strategies. Failure, on the other hand, was associated with increased attention, a search for better and more innovative strategies and, as a result, a wider palette of solutions for solving relevant problems.

Failure, it seems, should be welcomed rather than avoided. Therefore, if you’re afraid of failing, how can you change your outlook?

Don’t blame yourself. It was your approach that didn’t work, not you as a person who failed. Try to figure out why.

Watch your wording. Rather than telling yourself you “failed”, say that you “didn’t succeed” or that you “can do better next time”.

Focus on what you can control. If you’re taking a test or attending an interview, you can’t control the performance of your competitors, nor can you predict exactly which questions you’ll be asked. You can, however, control how well you prepare. Focus on that.

Learn from failure. When things go wrong, welcome this as an opportunity to figure out how you can do things differently – and better – next time.