Failure leads to success...but you have to plan!
Failure-
In my lifetime, I have been a 'failure'. In fact, at one point in most of our lives, we have all been a failure. Admit it! This failure could be: performing poorly on an exam in school; losing a business; separating from a partner, etc. These incidents are just part of life's many struggles as the human being experience.
Now, I would never convey that one should aim for failure. I believe in the merit of hard work and striving for greatness, no matter what the task or job. I have been a Housekeeper, and I have been a Doctor. The same principle applies to both jobs--you have to start from the bottom of the mountain no matter what. Success doesn't occur overnight, even in our instant gratification society we now live in.
We have this fear of failure. We are always rewarded for being 'correct' when properly answering a question to an answer. However, when we are 'wrong' in our answer to a question given, we are looked down upon, or looked at as stupid or "less than". It puts an emotional mark on your psyche at such a young age. And you are "classically conditioned" at that point. Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus (e.g. food) is paired with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. a bell)(1). In this manner, it relates to how every time you get a wrong answer, it puts your pscyhe into a negative mindset, and could possibly lead to a pessimistic attitude later if it continued on a regular basis. So the student now has a few approaches: 1) one approach is that they will have to read and study the information they are expected to know for future classes/exams so they do not have to have that same emotional stimulus in class if they happen to get an answer wrong; or 2) another possibly another approach is their personal apathy not letting the emotional stimulus affect the individual if they happen to answer a question incorrectly and not caring about whatever the teacher says; or 3) a controlled mind being able to handle whatever came their way. Obviously, we all could wish to have the confidence of the third mindset mentioned, but not everyone's brain operates the same. And mind you, these are 3 of MANY approaches that could be interpreted in these situations.
I personally will admit to having a negative mindset at different periods my own life, many times. I would be very hard on myself when I was younger, which further exacerbated this poor mindset. However, one thing that I always had, regardless of my mindset, was a plan. Every semester in college and every quarter in chiropractic school, I always wrote out my goals and posted it somewhere that I would see it everyday. I thought it would motivate me to perform better in life and in school. I failed MANY TIMES trying to achieve various goals, but I would always accomplish 1 or 2 if it were over 5 different goals I had set for the quarter. Setting goals high is not a bad thing by any measure, but the disappointment can sometimes affect our mindset in this manner.
My mindset is much different now. Even if I only had hit 1 of 10 goals in a given time period, that is still progress. It's still moving forward. And that is something to build upon each day making just little changes. Take for example, my profession, chiropractic: I have seen many patients who have such a bad attitude when it comes to their current complaint, and it affects their health in many different manners. It's completely understandable that nobody is happy when they are in pain. My approach is that I always try and provide an optimistic environment for my patients to be in because that mere change of mindset helps them understand that it is a process to get better-In health, and in life goals. Motivation is a powerful tool for change to happen, and sometimes we all need a push, even if the task seems unbearable. An expression I heard in school was: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!
As I have gained more life experience in my 30 years on this planet, I realized there is SO MUCH more that I have to learn, and I will have to always CONTINUE to learn as I grow older. And I will fail, over and over again. The admission of this to ourselves should be liberating because we have had this concept about being 'wrong', wrong! Being wrong should be celebrated, because it leads to a pursuit of knowledge. Asking questions is always a good thing. It's how you open your mind. It's how you grow as an individual. But you have to have the humility to accept being wrong, and we have to support the individual who was wrong to understand in a respectful fashion.
Now, everyone's life experience is different. We all lead different paths, have different emotions, and have different wants and needs. But in order to attain a life we want to make better for ourselves, we need to first have that admission of their being failures ahead. Risks need to be taken to promote your own personal growth.
In closing, I always wished that someone would have told me this expression when I was younger: "FAIL- First Attempt in Learning". And there will be many attempts, just keep going forward and making the little changes.
To Yours in Health,
Adam McBride, DC
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning