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MINDSET: The Power of Failure

 

   • Failure  is  powerful,  in  fact  necessary  for  learning,  problem  solving  and  excellence.  • Embracing  failure  means  you  take  the  risks  required  for  effective  learning  and  problem  solving.  • Failure  is  also  necessary  for  creativity  and  innovation.  

   

How  do  you  react  to  failure  and  mistakes?  Do  you  embrace  failure  and  mistakes  and  learn  and  improve  or  do  you  take  it  personally?    ..........................................................................................................................................................

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Why is “failure” so important?  

 

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If  you  are  not  failing  you  are  not  learning  because  doing  what  you  know,  staying  in  your  comfort  zone  may  be  fun  and  comfortable  but  it’s  also  boring  and  it  doesn’t  improve  you.    If  you  are  in  your  comfort  zone  playing  safe,  doing  things  that  don’t  stretch  you,  to  avoid  failure,  it  means  you  are  not  trying  hard  enough.    Studies  also  show  that  trying  things  and  making  mistakes  is  a  faster  way  to  learn  something  than  preparation  without  application.    

Recall  a  time  when  you  were  able  to  learn  something  or  improve  your  performance  because  you  paid  attention  to  the  mistake  and  corrected  it.    ..........................................................................................................................................................

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   When  you  are  home  or  at  school  look  around  you,  wherever  you  are,  you  will  see  something  that  another  person  or  a  team  of  people  created  or  invented.    You  simply  can’t  avoid  it.  What  is  not  well  known  are  the  number  of  mistakes  or  “failures”  that  were  necessary  for  it  to  work.      I  recently  came  across  this  quote  from  Sir  James  Dyson  in  an  interview.  He  said,    “I  made  5,127  prototypes  of  my  vacuum  before  I  got  it  right.  There  were  5,126  failures.  But  I  learned  from  each  one.  That’s  how  I  came  up  with  a  solution.  So  I  don’t  mind  failure.  I’ve  always  thought  that  schoolchildren  should  be  marked  by  the  number  of  failures  they’ve  had.  The  child  who  tries  strange  things  and  experiences  lots  of  failures  to  get  there  is  probably  more  creative.”    

List  other  inventors  or  successful  people  in  any  walk  of  life  who  were  able  to  make  a  break  through  after  many  failures  and  setbacks.  

If you are not making mistakes you are not learning  

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Problem solving via imperfection  

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   Twyla  Tharp:  Real  Change  Involves  Failure  One  of  America’s  most  celebrated  living  choreographers,  Twyla  Tharp  is  also  a  keen  observer  of  the  creative  habit  –  in  fact,  she  wrote  the  book  on  it.  From  Tharp’s  point  of  view,  failure  is  a  natural  part  of  the  path  to  innovation.  Here’s  an  excerpt  from  an  excellent  interview  with  the  Harvard  Business  Review:    The  business  literature  nowadays  talks  a  lot  about  the  need  for  failure  in  the  pursuit  of  excellence.  Do  you  accept  that?    Of  course  I  do.  Sooner  or  later,  all  real  change  involves  failure—but  not  in  the  sense  that  many  people  understand  failure.  If  you  do  only  what  you  know  and  do  it  very,  very  well,  chances  are  that  you  won’t  fail.  You’ll  just  stagnate,  and  your  work  will  get  less  and  less  interesting,  and  that’s  failure  by  erosion.  True  failure  is  a  mark  of  accomplishment  in  the  sense  that  something  new  and  different  was  tried.      Ideally,  the  best  way  to  fail  is  in  private.  In  my  office,  the  ratio  of  failure  to  success  on  the  dances  I  create  is  probably  something  like  six  to  one.  I  create  about  six  times  more  material  for  my  dances  than  I  end  up  using  in  the  final  piece.  But  I  need  that  unused  material  to  get  my  one  success.  I  have  also  sometimes  failed  in  public,  and  that’s  very  painful.  But  failing,  even  in  this  way,  is  not  useless.  It  can  force  you  to  get  yourself  together  and  to  produce  something  new.    

True  failure  is  a  mark  of  accomplishment  in  the  sense  that  something  new  and  different  was  tried.    What  does  this  statement  mean  to  you?  Have  you  experienced  “failure”  &  persevered  to  accomplish  something  you  were  not  able  to  before?      

The need for “failure” in the pursuit of excellence  

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   1.  Redefine  Failure  2.  Embrace  mistakes  and  imperfections  3.  Learn  from  mistakes  4.  Apply  your  new  learning,  solve  problems,  create  new  thinking.  

Action for you to take right NOW: