If at first you fail, try again.
If at second you fail, then...you might actually be 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 rejected 27 times before his first book deal), Disneyland
wouldn’t exist (Walt was once fired from a newspaper for “not being creative enough”),
and there’d be no Harry Potter guys (JK Rowling was divorced, jobless, and broke before
her famous book series)!
So is failure actually good for us?
Perhaps so, especially in the startup culture we have today where events like FailCon exist.
It’s exactly what it sounds like, a conference where hopeful startup founders learn about
the failures of other startups so they don’t make the same mistakes.
It’s a classic trope that those who don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat
them.
Really?
Doomed?
That’s kind of a strong word and may not be the best way to encourage success.
Or at least according to one study, which looked at whether there were any benefits
to telling students that it’s okay to fail.
The study gave 111 students very difficult tasks.
Before they began, some were given an “failure is ok” pep talk, while others were not.
At the end, no one was able to complete the task successfully.
However, those who received the pep talk had better working memory capacity, which can
predict academic achievement like reading comprehension and problem solving.
The study also suggested that those who didn’t get the talk may have felt more incompetent,
which may have interfered with their working memory7.
So stop telling kids they’re all doomed!
It’s okay, bud, make mistakes, we all do.
And if you fail, that might actually make you smarter in the long run.
In a study from the journals of Cognitive Science, two groups of students were asked
to solve math problems.
The first was taught the concepts and procedures ahead of time, while the second had to try
and figure it out for themselves before they were given a lesson.
Predictably, the second group failed at solving the problems before instruction.
But in a post-test, that group actually outperformed the students who had instruction first.
They also did better on questions about higher-level concepts that weren’t taught to either group.
The results suggest that letting students fail 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 your brain than failure.
Researchers gave monkeys a task and rewarded them when they responded it correctly.
When a monkey was successful, the neurons in the reward centers of their brain sent
out a signal that lasted several seconds, into the next task.
During those seconds, the monkeys were more likely to get that next task right too, suggesting
a chain reaction in your brain of success leading to more success.
No such signal was sent out when the monkey failed.
So success isn’t a bad thing, of course, but neither is learning from your failures.
In the end, what matters more is that you are actually DOING the activity you are trying
to learn and taking chances.
So keep doing!
Even if you fail, and then fail, and fail again…
So does this mean that it’s better to try and 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?