Our schools are set up in a way that brands temporary setbacks with a permanent capital F. This has negative consequences on learning, on progress and on dealing with failure as a matter of course.
Our society’s platitudes—“Learn from our mistakes,” and the cheerful, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”—are contradicted by a different reality: "that we often get punished for making mistakes and therefore try to avoid them—or cover them up—as much as possible,” writes Alina Tugend in Better by Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong.
Research shows, she adds, “how parents and teachers often unwittingly encourage such an error-avoidance mindset and how such children grow into adults who fear and dread making mistakes.”
Our mixed messages about failure create a stressful environment for children and teens, particularly girls and young women. This affects the choices that girls and women make, choices that can alter the course of their careers and their adult lives. For example, high-school students must calculate whether to take advanced courses, where they may not get straight As, and so risk lowering their grade point average, which may determine where they pursue their higher education. Such choices have lifelong consequences.
When our children attempt and fail, they are written off as not making the cut. Our schools and institutions use failure to sift for talent and intelligence, then set aside the children who failed—as if intelligence is set in stone. Some boys have that Teflon quality, where they let things bounce off them and rebound eager for more, but for many girls and boys, failure becomes a brand of shame and inadequacy embedded into their psyches. They blame themselves for what they perceive as their failure.
This is limiting. And such limits inhibit the creative process—which in turn dampen the entrepreneurial spirit responsible for society's greatest inventions and a person's most valuable contributions. But things needn't be this way. We can and must think beyond the fear of failure and use failure as a stepping stone to success. I explore this fear of failure further in my next post.
I'd love to hear how you've encouraged the girls in your life when they've had setbacks. What was the outcome? Share your story in the comments!
