Are the Benefits of Failure Overblown?
Sure, you can learn from failure. But sometimes it’s OK to just give up and move on. How do you know when to try, try again vs. when to just let it go?
“You may encounter many defeats — but you must not be defeated.” — Maya Angelou
I was terrible at baseball. I dreaded it, knew I would strike out, and tried circling to the back of the line-up in gym class. Did my prediction of striking out stem from a negative mindset or low self-esteem? Not really. Hindsight reveals the truth: I just stunk at baseball. Perhaps I could have improved with hours of batting practice. But realistically, I lacked the talent. Failure was largely inevitable.
Sometimes we’re not cut out for certain activities, no matter how hard we try.
Failure, though, has been touted as an essential stepping stone to success. If we don’t fail, then how can we learn to improve? Adversity and challenging experiences are often characterized as the secret sauce for building resilience and fortitude. When we fail, we are admonished to dust ourselves off and get back in the proverbial saddle, despite our anguish or embarrassment or even the certainty that we’ll fall off that horse again and again.
