Peter Bregman, on his blog at Harvard Publishing, wrote an interesting article entitled "Why You Need to Fail". I encourage you to read it. He quotes Dr. Carol Dweck, professor at Stanford University, on her research into why people give up VS why some folks press on and overcome.
"If you believe that your talents are inborn or fixed, then you will try to avoid failure at all costs because failure is proof of your limitation. People with a fixed mindset like to solve the same problems over and over again. It reinforces their sense of competence."
In addition to having a willingness to fail in order to grow it is important to keep focused on the goal. If you "look back when you plow" you will become defeated by your failures. When you are plowing and hit a rock and your horse tips over, it is time to get your horse back up, dust him off, learn from what happened and refocus your sights on the goal at the end of the row. Many people tend to continue to look back and, unable to look away from their failure, become paralyzed.
We all tend to go where we look.
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I agree. Through failure we can learn how resiliant we are. You learn that failing isn't the end of the world, but a new starting point, an opportunity to see things from a different perspective. While it may not be fun, failure is good for us in the long run.
Marie, thanks for the note. I've often thought it would be awesome if we were born smart and just became dummer as we grew older. When I was a child my mother used to buy cheap meat at the store and then beat the daylights out of it with a square hammer that had a bunch of spikes on it. It made it tender and tasty. My life has been a bit like that.
