Real learning comes from success

When failure occurs you become critical. When success occurs you feel accomplished. Failure, therefore, is critically analysed whereas success is not. Success offers more learning 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 you attempt the same activity.

Failure is taught to be a good thing to get the best out of you. We all know that it is true but what we all want is replication of success at the same or a higher level.

At the same time, a good look back on the failures will enlighten you on the flaws in planning and execution and that learning will help avoid same or similar flaws in the future.

How can one keep achieving great results or an organisation keep elevating the level of success? It's simply by identifying finer opportunities to continually develop and grow. It's by making step-by-step changes to the way of doing things - consistently looking for innovation and creativity to improve the level of success.

New perspective

Reflect on what you and your organisation has done in the past and how continuous successes came about? This will plant a new perspective in you.

Failure forces you to get back to basics - success teaches you to raise the bar.

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 always see them. One-time success does not guarantee continued success - consistent action does not always ensure consistent results. With the environmental challenges multiplying - to stay where you are, you need to keep on improving performance; be it yours or that of your employer.

Analyse the root cause of success too.

Behind every success there is failure. It's just that such failure finds refuge under the overall success - does not by itself bring to the surface the reasons to enforce change. The feeling of happiness you derive out of success blindfolds you in most situations. There is no end to the level of success - after all, no success has been perfect and will never be.

'Conscious mind'

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?

Both 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 root causes of 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 to achieve if you fall short of your 'big' goal? In that case, you'll 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 not a psychologist but my experience qualifies me to conclude that success has a much greater influence on the brain than failure. Success inspires you all and naturally motivates you to tap into your maximum innate capacity. So use it for greater success.