Can You Really Learn From Mistakes? New Research Shows It's Harder Than You Think Here's why it matters—and how you can use failure to your benefit
A new study has found that people tend to overestimate the ability to learn from failure
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- New research has found that not everyone learns from failure, but many people assume that they do.
- The assumption that failure is a good teacher may make people less likely to take steps to improve in the future.
- Psychologists say there are steps you can take to raise the odds that you’ll have success after failure.
People often point to growth as the upside of mistakes, but new research has found that the idea that people always learn from failure might be overblown.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, discovered that a majority of people mistakenly believe that people find success after failure in certain situations, like failing the bar exam.
This exaggerated belief about the learning potential of failure can block people from actually formulating a plan and making progress, said Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, PhD, lead study author and an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University.
“People who Pollyannishly overestimate the actual likelihood that success follows in the wake of failure are less likely to take the concrete steps that bring true resilience about,” she told Health. “That doesn’t mean you can’t have success after failure—you just shouldn’t assume it will be a given.”
Here’s what else the study revealed, as well as what experts suggest you can do after failing to raise your chances of success.
What Did the Study Find, Exactly?
To assess attitudes about success after failure, the research team analyzed data from online surveys of 1,800 adults in the United States. The questions asked participants whether they believed people would be resilient in certain situations, such as when their health fails or when they don’t get the test scores they want.
Researchers discovered that participants repeatedly believed more people would succeed after a setback than actually did. For example, survey respondents significantly overestimated the number of lawyers, teachers, and nurses who would go on to pass standardized tests that they initially failed, people with drug addiction who would become sober, and patients with heart failure who would make lifestyle changes to improve their health.
Not only did participants overestimate the chances of someone who failed at something improving in the future, but the survey respondents said they were also less likely to take action due to that belief. For example, researchers found that when participants didn’t know that people recovering from opioid addiction had a relapse rate of 91% in the first year, they were more likely to think tax dollars should go to rehabilitation programs compared to people who knew about the relapse rate.
Why Is It So Hard to Learn From Failure?
Despite what people believe, “learning from failure is often harder than learning from success,” Eskreis-Winkler said.
“The best way to learn is by being rewarded by success,” agreed Yvette Sheline, MD, a psychiatry and behavioral research professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. “Our brains reward us with a tiny little blip of dopamine when we guess correctly, for example. By practicing and improving over time, we build a pattern of success.”
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible to learn from failure, too. Making a mistake can be a “potent learning experience” because it was unexpected and noteworthy, Sheline said.
Whether there’s an upside to failing may depend on factors such as your motivation, how intense your emotional response is to failure, and your mental health status, including whether you’re anxious or depressed, added Hillary Ammon, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and founder of the Center for Anxiety & Women’s Emotional Wellness.
It can also come down to the importance of the event. Learning from monumental life moments like failing a qualifying or board exam, having a medical complication or injury, or reclaiming sobriety may be harder than less significant life experiences, like refocusing your diet after having a day of unhealthy eating, Ammon told Health. “Again, it may not be easy to get back on track, but the stakes may not be as high in this situation,” she said.
How to Use Failure to Help You Succeed in the Future
Psychologists say you can do a few things to ramp up the chances of succeeding after something doesn’t go your way at first.
Sit With It For a Moment
Failing is uncomfortable, but allowing yourself to think about the experience can be helpful for moving forward, Sheline said. Don’t sugar-coat what happened; give yourself the time to mull over the events leading up to the failure and your feelings around it before moving forward.
Pay Attention to What Went Wrong
Maybe you didn’t set aside as much time as needed to study for an exam, or you just made the wrong choice. “A person who is self-confident and self-aware can learn from failure because they can pay attention to the factors involved in the failure,” Sheline said. Taking the time to think about what could have contributed to your failure will make it less likely you’ll make the same mistake again in the future, she said.
Make a Point to Learn From It
It’s tempting to brush the failure away to push forward, but Eskreis-Winkler suggests consciously learning from your mistake. “When people fail, they automatically are confronted with two competing goals,” she said. “The first goal is to learn from the failure in order to do better next time. But the second goal is to feel good about oneself. When the goal to feel good overrides the goal to learn, people tune out and fail to learn from failure.” Consciously deciding that you will use this as a teachable moment can help lower the odds you’ll make the same mistake again.
Be Realistic
Only some people pass tough exams, even on the second try, or can achieve sobriety in a short period of time. That’s why Eskreis-Winkler recommends “understanding the actual rate at which success follows failure.” While “overly optimistic beliefs” about the power of failure seem beneficial, she said the data show they’re not.
Don’t Get Discouraged
It’s okay—and completely understandable—to be upset about failure. But Sheline said it shouldn’t hold you back from trying again in the future. Feeling confident and being reflective about what went wrong will help you to “learn more easily than someone who is discouraged, and not self-aware, who may be trying to avoid thinking about the situation altogether,” Sheline said.
This story originally appeared on: Health News - Author:Korin Miller
