Learn To Fail To "fail"!
When someone fails, it's almost always not only a result of their own limited skills, but also a result of something outside their control. These external factors don't have to prevent you from achieving your goals. The data is clear: succeed at something and fail less often! So how do you flip this around - avoid failure while still succeeding? One way is to learn how to fail effectively, which means understanding your own mistakes in advance and learning from them accordingly. Here are some tips for how to really make mistakes that will help improve your life and skill set.
1) Avoid perfectionism
The first step towards failing effectively is understanding that perfectionism isn't going to serve you or your goals well. That's because the more you look over your mistakes and dwell on the things you did wrong, the more you'll encounter roadblocks to achieve your goals.
"The primary function of perfectionism is self-defeating, impeding success. Perfectionism is a negative psychological force operative in individuals who are overly rigid, anxious or rigid and anxious about their abilities." - Arthur Aron
The more obsessively you track your performance and activities under the microscope of your own mind, the less you'll be able to learn from all but your largest mistakes. This means that perfectionism will serve as a barrier to growth which will prevent you from improving at flexibility, resilience or even being open to new ideas and opportunities for improvement. Perfectionism doesn't help you fail less.
There are numerous ways to combat perfectionism and reduce its negative impact upon your life. One of the best is to practice mindfulness, which can in many ways be seen as a form of "mental flexibility." Mindfulness increases resilience and is the opposite of perfectionism because it helps you accept the way things really are, not the way you want them to be. As a result, there's no more disappointment when something unexpected happens or when something important that you wanted to do doesn't work out. Both mindfulness and resilience are linked with increased success and happiness in life.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought." - Basho
2) Avoid "boosting" your confidence
So you messed up. Maybe you were too confident about your chances for success and ended up failing more than you expected. That doesn't mean you should start practicing positive thinking and trying to boost your own confidence. While this certainly seems logical, science has shown that this actually backfires when it comes to improving performance at a task or learning new skills.
"There are a substantial number of studies which have supported the hypothesis that self-affirmation reduces defensiveness and enhances constructive processing, thereby enhancing attitude change and probability of behavioral change." - Gendolla & Klamath
In other words, thinking positively about yourself may seem like a good idea, but it doesn't actually help you learn from mistakes because it prevents you from analyzing what went wrong. Instead, positive thinking can lead to something known as "reflection denial."
You need to be able to recognize your mistakes in order to learn from them. Even if you're doing something for the first time or are very inexperienced in some area that takes dedication and persistence as well as willingness to fail more than once before achieving your goals. Instead, you'll be more likely to think that you're having an off day and have "bad luck" than to think about the real reasons for the things that went wrong. This type of reflection denial is extremely damaging to your progress, because it prevents you from learning how to fix what's gone wrong. If you can't learn from your mistakes, then you'll continue to make them in the future, which will lead to repetitive failure in what could be a very important area of your life - whether it's at work or with relationships (again).
3) Set goals with "slippage"
When you've failed, the first thing that you should do isn't to set more goals or make more plans. Of course, this is something that lots of people figure out on their own, because they can't seem to get past the failures. Setting new goals isn't what will help you overcome your failures and move forward in a healthy way. If anything, it will just lead you down a road of repeated failure which will prevent you from ever achieving success.
"People who set specific personal goals tend to be more motivated than people who don't set such goals, and they achieve greater success. But when you set a specific goal, the need for a strategy or procedure to achieve that goal reduces the likelihood of success." - Gardner & Lucas
The key here is to develop what's known as a "goals-process" which really isn't about setting new goals. Instead, it's about learning how to manage your goals and subsequent plans so that they'll be more likely to succeed.
"The best way to do this is first of all to recognize that you have no control over what happens in your life (that's just the way it is, there are no guarantees) and then accept this fact, and learn how to live with it. Additionally, you need to understand that you have control over how you respond to what happens in your life, and this is absolutely up to you. Once you come to terms with these two things, fulfill your potential and live the life that you deserve." - Mark Manson
It may sound simple, but if you're looking for a fail-proof way of learning from your mistakes and improving your life, this could be it. Because it's impossible to control everything that happens in your life while it's happening - no matter how much effort or luck goes into shaping the outcomes - this is something that most people realize at least after something terrible has happened. The trick is learning how to turn those realizations into a way of living.
4) Don't forget "weaknesses"
It's all good and fine to realize that you have weaknesses. Everyone has them. The problem is figuring out what they are and, more importantly, admitting to yourself that you have them in the first place. This can be really difficult to do because it involves so many different things at once: honesty, strength of character, self-awareness, a willingness to accept your own flaws as well as a desire to overcome them. None of this will be easy for anyone and it's unlikely that anyone will manage it on their own terms the first time around.
"The truly wise man does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. He invites you to reveal your deepest self to him; he asks you to show him what tempestuous forces are concealed within. He shows you that your soul is your greatest treasure, and that it is not enough to be beautiful on the outside if what lies within is ugly. He shows you that true beauty cannot be found in the right things but only in the right way of seeing them, and that true value can only be found along a path of humility and obedience." - Khalil Gibran
If you really want to improve yourself and attain success, then it's going to require a lot of effort. You'll have come up against a lot of challenges which will be difficult for everyone.
Conclusion
There's no easy way to go about improving yourself, at least not without some help. While it will be possible for you to improve by yourself, this is a much more difficult path. If you're going to rely on your own skills and dedication, then you'll probably end up getting really frustrated and doubting yourself in the process.
It's much easier to let other people help you by pointing out what could be working better in your life than it is to self-improve while also dealing with all of the frustrations that are involved.
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Learn To Fail To "fail"!