Actually, learning from failure is overrated
(Plus new iPads, content that lasts, and an interview with a top bloke)
How’s your green time going?
Since the last edition, I’ve increased my score even more thanks to another trip to the Polish mountains with my work (Yup, that’s why this newsletter was delayed). Here’s a little peek at the peaks to pique your interest.
Anyway let’s get into it
Interesting links
Like 99% of digital sketchnoters, I use an iPad pro to create my images. Mine is more than 6 years old now and while it works fine, it does have a white dot on the screen due to overheating once. So of course I’m interested in the latest iPad…except their prices!
Janis’s visualisation (and the quote he was inspired by) really spoke to me.
10 years back I ran a tech news blog in my spare time. It was tough but earned me some money. One of the main reasons I stopped was because I wanted to create things that were relevant a year, a month, heck, even a week after I published them.
That’s why I create sketchy ideas. (Plus it reminds me of the lindy effect)
Michael Boorman of Wisdom Made Easy is a great visualiser and an even greater person. You might enjoy this little interview with him.
Learning from failure is overrated.
If you’ve hung around online, you’ve probably seen a visual like this.
It's easy to understand the appeal of the idea. We always make mistakes when we start something new. Failure also reveals what you don't know. And, accepting "failure" can help us persevere till we succeed.
All good things.
But the love affair with failure that many preach online has its dark side.
It focuses on repetition not reflection, which is key to learning
There are a million ways to fail, and that’s demotivating
It's an inefficient way to learn
It's better to learn what works, not what doesn't work
It's pretty obvious, isn't it?
I'd rather know how to do something successfully or why something works rather than just find something that doesn't work. After all, if I know what works, I'm able to replicate it again.
It's also much more motivating.
Success helps us keep going
When you start learning, you can quickly make incredible progress.
But it's not easy. In fact, it's really hard. I can still remember learning my first guitar chords and my fingers just wouldn't sit where I wanted.
But every time I managed to get all the strings to ring out, I got a boost.
And those boosts of success gave me the motivation to keep going. If I'd never managed to play a good chord, I would have given up at some point.
Reframing failure can help us keep going till we have some success, but success is still more motivating.
Failure is a terrible teacher
We can and should learn from our failures.
By viewing mistakes as a chance to learn, even when we regress to a prior point, we can gain insights and grow. In some cases, we can even turn our failures into successes. But the point is to succeed eventually, not keep failing.
If you elevate failure to the grand pedestal of learning, we devote our energy to the wrong areas.
You learn more from failure than doing nothing, but success is the best teacher of all.
Thanks for dropping by
I appreciate you taking the time to read this little newsletter and maybe even say hello (hint hint).
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I look forward to seeing you next week.
"If you elevate failure to the grand pedestal of learning, we devote our energy to the wrong areas. " This is incredibly useful reframing!