Today, we continue our Dadly Daily Declaration series with readings from The Passion Paradox by authors Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness. So far, Stulberg and Madness have discussed the pitfalls of passion and the sole focus of pursing your passion. Today’s reading continues with a focus on developing the mastery mind-set by embracing acute failure to achieve chronic gains.
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Here are a few gems from today’s reading:
- Failure sets off a cascade of changes that help you evolve so you can meet a greater challenge next time.
- For a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, talent development researchers Dave Collins, Áine MacNamara, and Neil McCarthy examined why some athletes who were world-class in their youth go on to become world-class as adults (what they call “super champions”), while other athletes, once world-class in their youth, end up in second-rate leagues (the heartbreakingly named “almost champions”). The researchers found that the difference between the super champions and almost champions appears to be at least partially driven by how each group responded to adversity.
- The greats rose to the challenge and put in persistent effort; the almost-greats lost steam and regressed. Super champions, the researchers write, “were characterized by an almost fanatical reaction to challenge.” They viewed challenges in a positive light—as opportunities to grow—and overcame failure thanks to a “never satisfied” attitude. They always wanted to grow more, to see what they were capable of, to find out for themselves what their “best” really meant. Almost champions, on the other hand, blamed setbacks on external causes, became negative, and lost motivation.
- Individuals who have faced adversity and faltered in the past are more likely to show persistent effort and succeed in the future.
- You not only learn from failure, but if you accept it as an inherent part of mastery and view it productively, you overcome it and are hardened by it.
- Or do you attribute failure to yourself—that you’re just not and won’t ever be good enough? Far too often, we default to the latter, which leads to a fear of failure that pushes us away from engaging in challenging experiences altogether. This is an acquired trait that begins early on in our youth. Studies show that students who fear failure shut down and quit whatever it is they were working on when the going gets tough.11 Students who embody more of a mastery orientation, however, continue to forge ahead, looking for alternative solutions.
- Shedding your fear of failure starts with working to disconnect your sense of self and ego from the external product of your work. Otherwise, failure becomes an attack on your actual “self,” on you as a person. And then you’ll go into defensive mode—blaming others, no longer taking chances, or, worse yet, cheating.
- If you remove your ego from the equation, failure can be a source of rich information and an opportunity to grow. Much like extrinsic motivation, ego can, and often does, subtly creep into the equation. That’s why it’s important to practice all the elements of the mastery mind-set, which work in tandem to keep ego at bay.
- Shedding your fear of failure doesn’t mean you should actively seek out failure. But it does free you to pursue bold challenges, to push the envelope.
Those gems lead us to today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:
No one becomes a master after a single, perfect attempt. Mastery is the product of many failures, each serving an important lesson. If you think of your goal as a direction, not a destination, then failure should be embraced.
Each failure provides you more of the knowledge you’ll need to continuously get better. What feels like failure in the short term is often essential to making long-term gains.
