Invaluable: Ego is the reason why some fail to learn from life lessons. – 123rf.com
SOME say failure is a lesson for success. It gives us deep insight and helps us to be resilient.
Some, however, argue that success motivates us better, and is the ultimate source of learning and reaffirmation in numerous ways.
In reality, both provide the human experience that we need to move on in all aspects of living. Both give us valuable lessons.
What are the lessons of failure? Based on my experience, failure can make us resilient, adaptable, and persistent in our new ventures.
I look at setbacks as lessons to reassess what I am doing and reframe my approaches.
I have made many mistakes. I reflect on them for lessons and they force me to recognise my weaknesses. From introspection, I analyse reasons for the failures and relearn to be better.
Here, I use failure to encourage me to think beyond the obvious by exploring untried approaches to solving challenges. In this way, failure does not create fear in me and stifle my creativity. In fact, it emboldens my striving to be more innovative.
And what are the lessons of success? Without doubt, every success gives me confidence and motivation to achieve more. This is about pride of achievement, one of my values.
Success gives me a sense of accomplishment and validation. It gives me self-esteem. When I experience success, it motivates me to replicate more success by building on my strengths.
From whom do we learn? A great share of learning, whether from failure or success, comes from personal experiences. We also learn from other role models. The success of others is a powerful inspirational force of learning. Together, they give us lifelong experiential learning.
It is wrong to suggest that learning is from either failure or success. Both are complementary and interconnected. They are symbiotic and each reinforces the other for future success. In reality, which is the more powerful source of learning is a contextual issue.
In some circumstances, we learn more from failure and in others, success provides the driving force for improvement. Contextual relevance is thus important.
Mindset matters in learning. In the end, whatever the contextual situations are, whether we can learn or not depends on our mindsets.
If we have a closed or static mind, we cannot learn. But if we have an expansive and inclusive mindset, we can absorb learning and improvement readily.
In Barbara Tuchman’s book entitled The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam, she points out how leaders have repeatedly failed to learn from failures and from history.
She points out how human beings have a tendency to persist in destructive actions, whether due to pride, ignorance, or misguided beliefs.
The failure to learn from history has caused repetitive mistakes in decision-making with enormous consequences.
This is caused by personal arrogance, ideological bias, or sheer refusal to acknowledge evidence that contradicts one’s views or vision.
Hence, wars are still fought all over the world even in this modern era in the name of various “isms”.
The lack of rational decision-making by politicians, especially that which results in long-term consequences, has created numerous tragedies in societies and nations worldwide.
At the present moment, some politicians value wars more than solving the socioeconomic sufferings of their own people.
However, there are also historical moments when wise decisions were made to avert a catastrophic tragedy. This is the case of the Cuban Crisis.
In the quest for personal and collective growth, failure and success provide valuable lessons. The lessons from failure give us resilience, self-reflection, and creativity. They help us to overcome challenges and adapt to new circumstances.
On the other hand, success teaches us confidence, and to identify strengths and learn from role models.
Mastering the symbiotic relationship between these experiences allows us to embrace the paradox of learning, extracting insights from both failure and success.
Ultimately, the ability to extract meaningful lessons from both lies in cultivating a growth mindset, and acknowledging that failures and successes are stepping stones on the path to personal and collective development.
In my personal experience in managing oneself and leading others, I must say that to learn to live well and to succeed in our endeavours is a most challenging task. A human being is indeed a very complex bundle of emotions. However educated the person is, it is impossible for him to escape his personal emotional imprisonment.
Our egos are huge and this is always the stumbling block that stops us from accepting reality.
So, while we debate whether failure or success can help us to be better individuals, the reality is that for some of us, both have no impact on us.
For some of us, we do not learn from failure and we do not learn from success: we are complete flops. Fortunately, there are few such total failures.
Prof Datuk Dr Paul Chan is the co-founder, vice-chancellor and president of HELP University (Malaysia). The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
