People who master a skill have typically failed at it far more times than those still struggling. Failure reveals gaps in understanding, forces creative problem-solving, and ultimately builds the resilience needed for success.
Yet most of us spend our lives trying to avoid failure at all costs. This article explores why learning from failure is essential for growth and provides eight practical tactics to help you reframe setbacks, extract valuable lessons, and turn mistakes into stepping stones toward achievement.
Editor’s note: This article is part of Shortform’s guide to success. If you like what you read here, there’s plenty more to check out in the guide!
Table of Contents
- Success Starts With Failure
- Benefits of Failure
- How to Learn From Failure
- Tactic #1: Redefine Success and Failure
- Tactic #2: Take Accountability and Accept Failure
- Tactic #3: Look Beyond Failure
- Tactic #4: Address Your Perfectionism
- Tactic #5: Embrace Embarrassment
- Tactic #6: Value the Process, Not the Outcome
- Tactic #7: Find Support in Others
- Tactic #8: Cope With Failure Like Rocket Scientists
- Dive Deeper
Success Starts With Failure
Most people are reluctant to fail or to admit failure, says Mark Manson in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. But to succeed at something you first have to learn from failure, usually multiple times, because failure is a part of success.
Improvement at anything is a result of many small failures. The more you’ve failed, the greater the scope of your success will be. Someone who is better at something than you has probably failed at it more times.
Children fall repeatedly when they are learning to walk, but they don’t give up on walking after failing a few times—they keep trying until they succeed.
We don’t start trying to avoid failure until later in life, when we internalize messages that failure is bad, from the education system and overly critical parents. A focus by the media on extraordinary success, but not on the challenges leading up to it, also distorts our beliefs about success. If you want to be successful at something you have to be willing to fail at it.
Benefits of Failure
If you choose to pursue work you’re passionate about, you’re likely to experience some failure along the way. What’s the best way to handle these failures? Tim Ferriss’s experts explain in Tribe of Mentors that, to push through them, you just need to focus on the benefits of failure:
- Benefit #1: Failure Teaches You
- Benefit #2: Failure Pushes You to Get Creative
- Benefit #3: Failure Gives You Freedom
Let’s discuss each of these benefits in more detail.
Benefit #1: Failure Teaches You
Physician Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No) asserts that failure shows you how to improve yourself. Being fired from his job as a medical coordinator helped him discover that he was far more self-absorbed and less personable than he had realized. This prompted him to improve himself and find success in his next job. Similarly, CrossFit athlete Mathew Fraser lost a championship that he was certain he would dominate, which taught him he was prideful and complacent. This motivated him to work harder, allowing him to win the championship the next year.
In Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed argues that we can only improve by learning from our failures. This is because your mistakes reveal what you don’t yet understand, thus showing what you need to learn next. For example, revising an essay always reveals vagueness or unclear logic in the first draft, and those mistakes tell the writer how to improve the essay.
On the flip side, neglecting to learn from mistakes means that you can’t improve. Imagine a gymnast who gets flustered by mistakes instead of assessing how to avoid them—such an athlete would keep repeating the same errors.
On the institutional level, organizations that learn from failures iron out systemic flaws and improve their performance. For example, lean startups prioritize learning from what goes wrong, adapting from customer feedback and product failures. By contrast, organizations that ignore their mistakes will continue to make them, risking stagnation.
The core of Syed’s argument is that, as individuals, we can only improve by learning from our failures. On the flip side, neglecting to learn from mistakes means that you can’t improve. For example, a dancer who takes every mistake as a chance to grow will get better, while a dancer who ignores or denies her errors will remain static.
This also applies on the institutional level: Organizations that learn from failures iron out systemic flaws and improve their performance. Organizations that ignore their mistakes will continue to make them, risking stagnation.
From here, Syed argues that we need to spread failure-based learning throughout modern society. Neglecting to learn wastes lives and resources, such as the tens of thousands of annual deaths from preventable errors in hospitals and the thousands of wrongful convictions in the court system. (Shortform note: To clarify, Syed bases his argument around the American health care and court systems, though he also cites some examples from the UK’s hospitals.)
Progress—our ability to develop our knowledge, our societies, or our technology—is a hallmark of human civilization. We develop by learning from failure, but so long as such major institutions neglect this opportunity, we won’t progress as smoothly.
Benefit #2: Failure Pushes You to Get Creative
Tim Ferriss asserts that failure is valuable because it forces you to respond in creative ways. These creative solutions often yield unique results since other people likely haven’t tried them before. Bodybuilder and acrobat Jon Call recounts how a severe ankle sprain caused him to train in ways that didn’t rely on his legs—specifically, using gymnastic rings. This gave him unique experience and pushed his skills in new directions he otherwise wouldn’t have chosen.
Similarly, burlesque performer and entrepreneur Dita Von Teese describes how her failure to become a ballerina forced her to forge an alternate path to the lifestyle she wanted. She had to think of a way into the elegant side of show business that didn’t require memorizing and executing intricate choreography—a limitation that inspired her to start performing burlesque. Von Teese contends that this adaptation made her unique and allowed her to have a greater impact on the world.
Benefit #3: Failure Gives You Freedom
In Tribe of Mentors, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt argues that devastating failure is valuable because it gives you freedom from fear. After you fail, time passes and you realize that almost no failure has major permanent consequences. This reveals that there’s nothing to be afraid of, giving you the courage to risk failure again and improve your skills.
Additionally, filmmaker David Lynch contends that failure gives you freedom from all creative constraints. After a massive failure, you have nothing more to lose, allowing you to create whatever your heart desires. This creative freedom is a source of pure joy.
How to Learn From Failure
Overcoming the fear of failure is a common internal struggle. Many of us avoid making big or hard decisions because we’re afraid of failing. Failing might mean not getting the job, not getting published, or getting romantically rejected. In Get Your Sh*t Together, Sarah Knight explains that fear of failure often leads to inaction.
Here are eight tactics that will help you accept failure as part of the process, and learn from it to find success.
Tactic #1: Redefine Success and Failure
In Anatomy of a Breakthrough, Adam Alter suggests that many of our concepts of success are too extreme. If you’re a struggling musician with your heart set on a Grammy or a young romantic looking for your perfect soulmate, failure is almost guaranteed. However, if you set more realistic expectations, such as turning your musical hobby into a career or strengthening an imperfect relationship, then success will be hard but achievable. Even those people we perceive as great successes—geniuses, billionaires, and award-winning artists—experience many failures in their lives. What matters is how they build upon failure and readjust their courses of action.
Much of our fear of failure stems from having warped values. For example, if your value is to make everyone like you, you’ll feel insecure and fear failing because others will determine whether you succeed. A more constructive value would be to build good relations with others, which isn’t dependent on the actions of others.
Growth makes us happier than checking off a list of accomplishments, such as graduating from college, getting a promotion, or buying a house. These kinds of short-term achievements generate a limited amount of satisfaction—once you achieve them, they don’t keep making you happier and happier.
However, constructive values—for instance, being honest with others — involve an ongoing process that’s never completed and that continues to provide satisfaction. For example, Pablo Picasso continued to be a prolific artist throughout his life. Had his value been to make a lot of money and be famous, he’d have retired to enjoy the fruits of his success. But his value was continuous learning and improvement — and that kept him going for decades.
Tactic #2: Take Accountability and Accept Failure
In Professional Troublemaker, Luvvie Ajayi Jones writes that you’re bound to make mistakes when you speak up. Failure is inevitable. But failure is also necessary for success. It’s an opportunity to learn, take accountability, grow, and become a better person.
Jones gives the example of a time she said something on Twitter that could be construed as offensive to a musical artist. In response, the entire Internet seemed to go wild with criticism for Jones—she even received death threats. Initially, Jones defended herself, but this only fanned the flames. She felt so awful about the situation that she took a year-long break from writing on her blog. She finally realized that she couldn’t let the criticism silence her.
Failure can make you afraid to speak. To prevent this from happening, examine where you went wrong and learn from your failures. When Jones took a hard look at her Twitter failure, she learned valuable lessons:
- Take accountability for your mistakes. If you offended people or hurt their feelings, apologize. Jones realized that one of her mistakes was failing to simply apologize for her tweet, rather than going on the defensive.
- Punch up, not down. Reserve your critiques for those who have more power or privilege than you. If you make fun of or criticize people who are less powerful than you, you can reinforce damaging stereotypes. And realize that as you become more successful, what constitutes “up” and “down” changes: If you have a large platform, you’re no longer the “little guy.”
- It’s impossible to grow without failure. Failure helps you become a better and more successful person. Jones has an even larger audience now because her failure taught her to use her words more responsibly.
Tactic #3: Look Beyond Failure
Many of us see failure as the end of the line. This is wrong. Adam Alter writes that since failure is a necessary step toward success, you have to reframe your attitude toward it. Choose not to beat yourself up when you fail. Simply look at your failure and figure out what it can teach you. Meanwhile, look at all the progress you’ve made. After all, if you “fail” and feel your progress has stopped, it means that you’ve been making an effort, and you’ve probably come a long way from where you started. When you reflect on the progress you’ve made and learn the lessons that failure can teach you, you prime yourself to climb out of your rut and break through whatever wall is holding you back.
Tactic #4: Address Your Perfectionism
Fear of failure can also sometimes manifest as perfectionism, says Sarah Knight. If you’re worried about everything being perfect, you’re more likely to procrastinate or spend too much time on something. She explains that while you’re busy trying to do one thing perfectly, the other things on your to-do (and must-do) lists keep piling up.
To address perfectionism and fear of failure, Knight recommends accepting that you aren’t perfect and that failure is possible. Knight argues that we all have limited energy, so it’s better to spend the energy we do have accomplishing our goals rather than wasting time being afraid that we won’t or that we won’t do it well enough. She adds that even if you do fail, it’s likely not the end of the world—there are very few scenarios in which your failure is a matter of life and death.
Finally, if you’re struggling, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Knight explains that while the book is about how to get your own shit together, there’s no shame in asking for help, whether that be from friends or licensed professionals. Sometimes, telling someone you need help is the accountability you need to make the necessary changes.
Tactic #5: Embrace Embarrassment
Most learners do whatever they can to avoid awkward, uncomfortable failures when acquiring a new skill. However, doing so sets them up for inevitable failure. Why? To learn anything, you have to practice it before you’re good at it. This is naturally uncomfortable and sometimes downright embarrassing, so most learners avoid this kind of practice. They prepare indefinitely or try to teach themselves solely through abstract theory, in hopes that they can become competent without trying and failing along the way.
Instead, Hidden Potential by Adam Grant recommends learning how to learn from your mistakes. Put your skills into practice as soon as possible: The very first day you start learning how to do something, try your best to successfully do it. When you inevitably make mistakes, take each one as an opportunity to learn what you’re doing wrong. Make it a habit to expand the most uncomfortable parts of your training—the parts where you make the most mistakes—rather than minimize or avoid them. For example, if you’re learning how to draw and feel embarrassed because the faces and hands you draw always look bad, challenge yourself by drawing more faces and hands.
Additionally, the more mistakes you make and learn from, the more comfortable you’ll become with making further mistakes. If you can connect your feelings of discomfort to the knowledge that you’re making progress, you’ll discover that the effort you’re putting in is satisfying in itself, even if it continuously results in awkwardness and failure. This mindset is called learned industriousness.
Tactic #6: Value the Process, Not the Outcome
To ward off disappointment and learn how to bounce back from failure, you must see the process of pursuing your goals as more important than the outcome, Bob Rotella writes in How Champions Think. Exceptional people pursue their goals fully recognizing the possibility that they may not attain them. They find joy in the process of striving for their goals, rather than in the promise of external rewards or recognition. This mindset ensures that you give it your all and persist even when you face obstacles that might prevent you from getting the outcomes you desire.
You can be more process-oriented by creating two lists of goals: One for training and one for performance. Both lists should be process-focused. So, for example, if you’re a violinist, your training goals might be practicing sight reading for an hour every day and your performance goals might be focusing on the present moment during your concert. Having these goals in place gives you something to focus on other than the outcome of your performance, be that a competition, a musical performance, a speech, and so on.
Tactic #7: Find Support in Others
Another way you can grow from challenges and setbacks is by finding people who can give you advice and support you with your goals, Rotella writes. However, you must also be selective with who you listen to and learn to distinguish helpful feedback from unhelpful feedback. If you take everyone’s advice, you’ll end up experimenting with different and often contradictory approaches that will only leave you confused, distracted, and frustrated.
To determine who to listen to, Rotella suggests you first find the right people to support you. They should be optimistic and encouraging, yet willing to give you honest and constructive feedback. They should also share your vision and values. He then advises that when you find people you trust, you should treat them with respect and listen to their advice.
Even when you trust someone’s opinions, though, you still shouldn’t take their advice without thought, Rotella writes. He suggests you listen to them, but know your strengths and stick with the techniques that suit you best. Their advice may be sound and their techniques may work for others, but they may not match your natural strengths.
Listening to the opinions of people you trust ensures you get constructive feedback that helps you improve rather than unhelpful feedback that damages your self-confidence. Thus, Rotella advises that once you’ve identified people you trust who can give you feedback, you tune out feedback from everyone else. This includes other experts who want to offer you tips, as well as negative and unhelpful people who may try to discourage you. Rotella advises you to ignore these people and not let them affect your confidence or performance.
Tactic #8: Cope With Failure Like Rocket Scientists
Here’s how Ozan Varol (Think Like a Rocket Scientist) believes rocket scientists can teach you how to learn from failure:
1) Cultivate psychological safety (an environment in which employees feel free to take smart risks and fail). To do this, Varol says, companies can reward “intelligent failures” either with compensation or praise and set a good example by having leaders share their failures publically.
2) Shift your thinking from short-term gains to long-term success to ensure you learn from each failure. This can help take the sting out of failure, which hurts in the short term but can be a valuable learning experience in the long run.
3) Consider the underlying causes. According to Varol, when something goes wrong, it’s tempting to identify the most obvious cause, fix that, and consider the whole issue resolved. However, the most obvious cause is often just a symptom, not the root of the problem. Dig deeper and find the root cause to truly solve the problem.
Dive Deeper
If you want more advice on learning from failure, you can check out the full Shortform guides to the books mentioned in this article here:
