It is almost a platitude, that failures are a source of learning.
Most of those who failed will have been told that they must learn from having failed.
But what is it that makes failures a source of learning?
There are at least two ways to seek to learn from failures. One is through the lens of similarities, and another is through the lens of differences and novelty.
Using the lens of similarities often ends up in taking a piece of known information and conclude on the best learning.
In such a case, learning seems to be more of a decision. It is an experience of failure that seems to confirm a story one has been telling oneself. The immediate reaction to that experience will be a more emotional one. Most probably it will be the desire to avoid repeating an experience one didn’t like. Whatever the action or experiment undertaken, may it even be one serving the desire to step out of that story, it is the emotional connection between this experience of failure and another experience one feels challenged by. The past made itself present in the new experience of failure and most probably appeared with a sense of guilt or shame.
We’ll often hear reactions like “It’s always like that” or “I knew that I shouldn’t …”
Sticking with that reaction, there is a risk of confirming an existing bias or idea based on the past instead of the current event. A previous learning will find itself reinforced.
Using the lens of difference and novelty instead is the choice to accept that something was not known until then. And whatever the action or experiment was that led to the failure, it is taken as pointing at something that has changed. Something new appeared creating the possibility to take up a new perspective, use previously unknown information, or decode an experience that feels confusing.
Learning in this case is focused on the experience of being confused as a reaction to being confronted with something previously unknown. Learning creates new meaning and replaces the confusion with it. Confusion is seen as the possibility to learn.
Access to learning appears through letting go of the past experiences used to make meaning, but also through letting go of the shame or guilt connected with the sense of failure.
It is a shift from rejecting the experienced emotion to opening up and noticing the confusion.
Moving through the emotion is a way to step into the confusion.
Accepting the confusion enables curiosity and directs the focus to the place where the mind can start to problem solve.
The presence of curiosity enables learning.
