Mistakes Are Magic: Harnessing The Power Of Errors for Rapid Learning.
Errors are Good.
If you are on this article just by reading the title, you may be the one who continuously makes errors and mistakes. You might be thinking about why Errors are Good. How can Errors can be good? As per our childhood experience and learning, Errors are Errors. And these are not good for our growth.
But what if I say, Frustrations are Good Too?
Now, the same questions may be arising in your mind. What I am talking about?
So let me tell you. Errors Are Good for Fast Learning. Frustration is the key if you want to learn anything fast.
I’ll explain all in this article.
To get a clear context of learning, We need to understand first these two terms.
Adaptive Plasticity and
Incremental Learning
“In the face of adversity, the human brain’s adaptive plasticity allows us to rewrite our own destiny.” — Sharon Begley
Adaptive Plasticity
Let’s break it:
Adaptive: Adaptive refers to the ability of something to change or adapt to better suit its surroundings or conditions.
Plasticity: The ability of an organism or system to alter, adapt, or be shaped by its experiences or surroundings is referred to here as plasticity.
Therefore, when we refer to “adaptive plasticity,” we’re referring to a living system’s or organism’s capacity to modify itself in response to its surroundings or experiences. It’s similar to an organism’s ability to adapt and flourish in various environments. An illustration of adaptive plasticity is when we move to a new place or environment we alter our behaviour or physiology to better thrive in a new environment.
Incremental Learning
Incremental: This word refers to a gradual, piecemeal process.
Learning: Gaining knowledge or abilities through practice, study, or experience is known as learning.
The term “incremental learning” describes a learning process in which you progressively pick up new information or skills over time in modest increments. The alternative to learning everything at once is this.
Consider it like putting together a puzzle one piece at a time. You steadily build up each component (a piece of knowledge or talent), and you continue to study and develop over time without overwhelming yourself.
In conclusion, incremental learning is a steady, step-by-step process of learning new information or skills, whereas adaptive plasticity is the capacity to alter and adapt in response to the environment.
Why Errors Are Good?
So, when we try to learn something new for the very first time, we make a lot of errors and mistakes. And this circle never ends and we keep making errors. Our brain never learns so quickly, because we have pre-recorded patterns and behaviors stored in our memory that are not easy to break or alter.
When we keep making errors again and again, this makes us feel frustrated. And this frustration leads us to boredom. Due to this boredom, most of us quit the process of learning.
And this is the biggest mistake we make.
Because Making errors again and again is the key to plasticity. The concept of Adaptive plasticity works right here. We can put this like:
“The best way to Plasticity is sending signals to our that are unfamiliar to our brain.”
Neurologically what happens is “ When we make errors continuously our nervous system starts releasing Neurotransmitters and Neuromodulators that say “ We better change something in circuitry””.
So It is totally clear that Making Errors again and again is the only way to send signals to our brain to make changes we want to. Frustration is a key factor to wire plasticity as it releases neurochemicals like Epinephrine ( that is for Alertness) and Acetylcholine ( that is for Focus).
That’s Why Errors are basic and good for learning and staying with the process of Frustration will shift your neurons.
Role of Frustration and Dopamine.
“Frustration is the first step towards improvement. I have no incentive to improve if I’m content with what I can do and if I’m completely satisfied with my pace, distance, and form as a runner. It’s only when I face frustration and use it to fuel my dedication that I feel myself moving forward.” — John Bingham
Experiencing difficult circumstances or mistakes frequently causes frustration. Dopamine is released during this emotional reaction, especially in the brain’s ventral striatum, which is part of the reward system. Dopamine is linked to reinforcement learning and motivation. In essence, when we feel frustrated, the brain is telling us, “This is important, and we need to figure it out.” This increased motivation may result in greater concentration and effort when learning.
So we should learn to attach Dopamine subjectively to this process of making errors.
Making failures repetitively, provided we are engaging in a very specific set of behaviors when we do it, as well as telling ourselves that failures are good for learning and good for us, will create a tremendous effect on the rate of plasticity.
Final note.
This is all I try to explain why errors are good and frustration is key to learning something new at a faster rate. So from now if you ever make any error or feel frustrated just remind yourself that you are on the right path. You are growing and learning.
