Why Being A Failure Is A Good Thing

Many of the world's most successful people have failed many times before finding success. Here's why failure is so important.

Failure Is A Good Thing

If at first you fail, try again. If at second you fail, then...you might actuallybe better than the rest of us. Hey failures, Trace here for DNews. Imagine a world without failure. We wouldn’t have Dr. Seuss (he was rejected27 times before his first book deal), Disneyland wouldn’t exist (Walt was once fired froma newspaper for “not being creative enough”), and there’d be no Harry Potter guys (JKRowling was divorced, jobless, and broke before her famous book series)! So is failure actually good for us? Perhaps so, especially in the startup culturewe have today where events like FailCon exist. 

It’s exactly what it sounds like, a conferencewhere hopeful startup founders learn about the failures of other startups so they don’tmake the same mistakes. It’s a classic trope that those who don’tlearn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Really? Doomed? That’s kind of a strong word and may notbe the best way to encourage success. Or at least according to one study, whichlooked at whether there were any benefits to telling students that it’s okay to fail. 

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The study gave 111 students very difficulttasks. Before they began, some were given an “failureis ok” pep talk, while others were not. At the end, no one was able to complete thetask successfully. However, those who received the pep talk hadbetter working memory capacity, which can predict academic achievement like readingcomprehension and problem solving. The study also suggested that those who didn’tget the talk may have felt more incompetent, which may have interfered with their workingmemory7. So stop telling kids they’re all doomed! It’s okay, bud, make mistakes, we all do. And if you fail, that might actually makeyou smarter in the long run. 

In a study from the journals of CognitiveScience, two groups of students were asked to solve math problems. The first was taught the concepts and proceduresahead of time, while the second had to try and figure it out for themselves before theywere given a lesson. Predictably, the second group failed at solvingthe problems before instruction. But in a post-test, that group actually outperformedthe students who had instruction first. They also did better on questions about higher-levelconcepts that weren’t taught to either group. The results suggest that letting studentsfail first could be helpful, at least in math. But before you intentionally crash and burn,another study out of MIT suggests that success might have a more positive influence on yourbrain than failure. 

Researchers gave monkeys a task and rewardedthem when they responded it correctly. When a monkey was successful, the neuronsin the reward centers of their brain sent out a signal that lasted several seconds,into the next task. During those seconds, the monkeys were morelikely to get that next task right too, suggesting a chain reaction in your brain of successleading to more success. No such signal was sent out when the monkeyfailed. 

So success isn’t a bad thing, of course,but neither is learning from your failures. In the end, what matters more is that youare actually DOING the activity you are trying to learn and taking chances. So keep doing! Even if you fail, and then fail, and failagain… So does this mean that it’s better to tryand praise kids and boost their self-esteem, even if they fail? Maybe not. Find out why in this video from Julia and Amy. What’s one thing you’ve failed at? 

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