Can We Learn to Fail Well?
“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”
—Theodore Roosevelt
I Felt Like a Failure
Sometimes the failures are small: you forget to add the attachment to your email; you make a wrong turn at the intersection; you’re late because you misplaced your car keys.
But other failures, like some of mine this year, are larger. For instance, I’ve needed to have some difficult conversations. I knew they’d be uncomfortable, so at first I put them off. Maybe the problem will just disappear? Or maybe the other person will initiate the conversation instead of me?
Yet when avoidance and procrastination failed to work, I finally prompted the conversations.
And some of the conversations went terribly wrong. I ended up in tears. I walked away with more frustration than I came with.
I felt like a failure because the issues weren’t successfully resolved. I wanted to pull back even more. Armor up. Avoid being vulnerable again.
But was that the wrong lesson to learn from failure. Was I failing at failure?
3 Reasons We Fail at Failure
Amy Edmondson writes in her new book, Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, that we often miss the opportunity to fail well.
Here are three reasons she shares about why we often fail at failure.
1. AVERSION
We have an instinctive negative response to failure so we avoid it at all costs.
2. CONFUSION
We incorrectly distinguish between different types of failure, and thus fail to learn the appropriate lessons from each.
3. FEAR
Instead of admitting and sharing our failures, we tend to hide them because we fear a social stigma, of looking bad, of being kicked out of the tribe.
How to Fail Better
Instead, Edmondson suggests the following ways to fail better:
* Get friendly with errors
Foster an environment of psychological safety, making it okay to fail. Create blameless reporting. Rather than blaming and shaming for failures, use failures as opportunities to learn something new you might not have learned any other way.
“Good failures are those that bring us valuable new information that simply could not have been gained any other way.”
* Set lower standards
Aim for excellence instead of perfection. Perfectionism is unrealistic. Everyone fails. No one is flawless. Give yourself permission to be human.
“It’s tempting to believe that if we just hunker down, we can avoid failure altogether. It’s also wrong. The relationship between effort and success is imperfect. The world around us changes constantly and keeps presenting us with new situations. The best-laid plans encounter problems in an uncertain context.”
* Choose learning over knowing
If you think you already know most things (which we’re hardwired to do, by the way), you’re not open to uncovering what you don’t know, setting yourself up for more failures. Be humble to be more effective.
“It’s wise to take the time to diagnose what went wrong, while reminding yourself that intelligent failures are not preventable. In new territory, the only way to make progress is through trial and failure.”
* Try new things
To become more adept at handling failures, be vulnerable. Put yourself in new situations or learn new skills where you’re bound to experience failure at some level. Make peace with the process.
When we get better at failing, at least two good things can happen:
“One, you realize that you don’t die of embarrassment. Two, you build muscle so that each next failure stings less. The more you experience failure, the more you realize you can still be okay.”
The Benefits of Failing
The benefits are clear: with less fear of failure, you’ll have more freedom to live courageously, more patience with yourself and others, and more authentic relationships—people tend to like us better when we share our failures instead of only showing images of perfection.
“The real failure, I’ve found, is believing that others will like us more if we are failure-free. In reality, we appreciate and like people who are genuine and interested in us, not those who present a flawless exterior.”
I’m trying to pick myself back up from my failed conversations and use them as life lessons. Sure, I could have handled them more skillfully, but I did the best I could at the time. I’m proud of myself for even trying, and hopefully next time I can use the learned lessons to create more beneficial outcomes for everybody, including myself. Eliminating blames helps eradicate shame.
Being wrong happens to each of us. It is disappointing, to be sure. We all want to fail less.
But instead of withdrawing or becoming defensive or more fearful when failures happen, let’s embrace our failures as part of being human.
Learn to fail well.
Do you hate to be wrong, too? Share your thoughts in the comments.
My thanks to Netgalley + Atria Books
for the review copy of Right Kind of Wrong
- 7 Tips for How to Choose Your One Word of the Year
- Discovering Life’s Wisdom – 4 Key Takeaways on Being Human
None of us is perfect by any stretch, Lisa. I found the thoughts you’ve expressed here to be very encouraging. We can learn to fail well and learn from those failures so we can do better in the future.
Blessings!
This sounds interesting. I was just frustrated with myself yesterday, because one of my errands was to get return-address labels for the printer. I saw one store I was going to had them, so I didn’t have to make a stop by Office Max. But I came home with stocking stuffers and assorted other things–and no labels. Ugh! I used to beat myself up over failures large and small, and that’s still my tendency. But I’ve learned that really doesn’t help anything–it just makes it all worse. So I try to learn from it and carry on. That’s harder to do with larger failures and higher stakes. But if God is gracious and forgiving with us, we can be with ourselves, too.
I love this post so much. Those 4 points you mentioned are, I think, crucial to handling failure well. And I think we sometimes judge something as a failure when it was actually a necessary component for change or for growth or for something else that’s actually quite beneficial. This is just wonderful advice. Pinning this to share! Visiting from Crazy Little Lovebirds linkup.
I think one challenge is to accept what we can change and learn from and to let go of the things we can’t control. One of the reasons I know I avoid facing those challenging conversations is often you know the outcome isn’t going to be good. However, I’m slowly learning that I only own what I’m responsible for and I do have to have good stewardship of that but I don’t own other people’s responsibilities and emotions. I will take responsibility and make amends were I have caused harm but I will not be abused for things I have no control over.
I’m also learning to have more patience with myself. Some of this comes from taking time to empty the tanks so to speak with guided meditation, prayer and time to refresh because stuff seems to get stuck in a cycle when I don’t take time to actively release it.
I cringe at the thought of lowering my standards. Funny I caught myself reacting to that. too much perfectionism and fear of failure in my life. I am learning to recognize it but not handling it well yet.
Oh yes Lisa I have been there too! And I’m a trained and experienced negotiator & mediator! But with personal conversations that we need to have it can be an entirely different scenario altogether! I too have failed at these times.
Great post, blessings, Jennifer
Hi, Lisa – Embracing our failures is excellent advice. I am grateful for mine because every single failure amd missteps equally with my positive steps led me to where I sit right now…and it’s a pretty good place to sit! <3
These words, “Aim for excellence instead of perfection. ” were words that I needed to be reminded of. I am noticing that I have a tendency to not do something at all because I prefer things to turn out perfectly. In my head, I know that’s unrealistic to try living life like that because in the end, no one can do everything perfectly.
Oh, my! at the times I have struggled with failure. Especially when I was younger and convinced that I was unintelligent and not enough. Each failure just seemed to confirm what “I already knew.” As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that failure goes along with life. Just like you said, we don’t know everything. I typically choose to not think of it in terms of “failing” because I’ve also learned as I’ve gotten older that that word implies that we know exactly what to do or say in every situation, and we just didn’t do it. But that’s not how it works. If I’m showing up, then I can’t “fail”—no matter the outcome.
Lisa, I can relate. It’s so much easier to explain to someone else how they should handle a difficult situation than to handle one ourselves. I’ve had plenty of my own failures. Isn’t it good that we can run back to the cross and receive His mercy and grace when we do? And then to seek His help to make it right or learn from our mistakes.
Lisa, I have faced many difficult situations in the past. Recently, I found myself in the middle of some unwanted drama. I had to decide whether it was worth letting those people get the best of me or letting go of the situation and allowing them to believe what they wanted. I chose to let go, but it was still frustrating. At first, I felt like I had failed, but then I was reminded that God is always with me, no matter what. I realized there was nothing to prove, and I took this experience as another life lesson. Thank you for sharing this with us at The Crazy Little Love Birds link party.
P.S. I hope you and your husband are feeling much better this week!
Great summary of the book! very tempted to pick it up. I watched a webinar the author did, discussing team work — and the importance (and potential) of psychological safety. I have put her book “Teaming” on my Christmas wish list ????
Beaming good vibes and prayers for your difficult conversations. Fumbling after being brave and stepping up can be especially hard to take. I’ll pray that the failure was more apparent than real and that positive developments are afoot.
I love this! Yes, we all will fail, we might as well do a proper job of it! One of my features for WTJR 12.15.2023. Thank you for sharing with us!