Success provides learning opportunities
When failure occurs you become critical. When success occurs you feel
accomplished. Failure, therefore, is critically analysed and success is
not.
Success offers more learning opportunities than failure. I know it
conflicts with what you have heard and been told before; learn from
failure. There is a theory and a notion that we should learn from
failure to succeed the next time when we attempt the same activity.
Failure is said to be a good thing to get the best out of us. We all
know that it is true but what we all want is replication of success at
the same or higher level.
At the same time, a good look at our failures will enlighten us on
the flaws in planning and execution and that will help us avoid the same
or similar flaws in the future.
How can one keep on achieving great results or an organisation keep
elevating the level of success?
It is by identifying finer opportunities to continuously develop and
grow. It is by making step-by-step changes to the way of doing things -
consistently looking for innovation and creativity to improve the level
of success. Reflect on what you and your organisation have done in the
past and how successive successes came about? This I'm sure will plant a
new perspective in you.
Failure forces you to get back to basics
When failure occurs you usually go back to basics and correct the
fundamental flaws which make you cross the bar and claim the win.
Whereas when flaws in success are corrected it elevates the level of
success. The rate of success is not usually measured. If you develop the
habit of looking for opportunities for greater success you will always
see them.
One success does not guarantee continued success - consistent action
does not always ensure consistent results. With environmental challenges
multiplying - to stay where you are you have to keep on improving
performance; be it your individual or that of your employer.
Analyse success too
Behind every success there is failure. It's just that such failure
which finds refuge under overall success - does not by itself bring out
the reasons to enforce change. Feelings of happiness you derive out of
success blinds you in most situations.
There is no end to the level of success - after all no success has
been perfect and will never be.
If you want to learn from success, consider chunking down the
opportunities to improve into steps in which you can succeed more easily
or aim for greater success.
The fact that we learn more from our successes than from our failures
is not new. Even family pets respond more to reward than punishment, and
so do our children. But what wasn't in the 'conscious mind' is how
learning out of success can guide you to achieve greater heights?
Failure and success should trigger further investigation not just
failure only. It helps us revise our assumptions, models, inherent
practices and behaviour. Why not use the same approach to understand the
reason for success? Let's challenge the theory for good reasons.
Success has a much greater influence on the brain than failure.
Consider your goals - certainly you'll feel accomplished if you succeed.
But what if you fail? Do you have an 'intermediate' goal which you can
achieve if you fall short of your 'big' goal? In this case, you will
have succeeded - and learned from the experience more than if you had
simply failed.
Or, what if you do 'fail' - what then? What have you succeeded at in
the process of 'failing'? What positive outcome did you achieve? Maybe
you made a mess of one thing but scored at another in the process.
What is it you did achieve? You may need to look deep - and in the
finding, you'll discover the learning, too.
I'm no psychologist but my experience qualifies me to conclude that
success has a much greater influence on the brain than failure.
Success naturally inspires and motivates you to tap into your maximum
innate capacity. So use it for greater success. |