Learning to Fail

Hello all!

Recently, we’ve been talking about the concept of learning to fail. Very fun. So in the spirit of accepting failure, I will be ending this post here.

Haha, just kidding. If only.

The very first core concept in the Mattson text is this: you have to learn to fail, to win.

What does that mean? Well, Mattson is talking about the natural process of any effort ever made. Learning to do something means failing at it. A lot. Learning piano? You will not always have the right notes or rhythm. Learning coding? Your code will not always do the right thing. Learning to crochet? UGH.

Just kidding. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

The point is that learning to do anything well requires failure, and learning from that failure. To be able to fail over and over again and still pick up and try again is just learning to fail. It doesn’t mean failing on purpose, it just means that you are learning to be okay with and learn from failure. To get good at something, you have to learn from being bad at it, and in doing so you are also learning how to be bad at it. You may not use that knowledge directly, but you are using it indirectly to push you towards being good! Did that make sense? If not, I guess I’ll learn from my mistakes next time.

Furthermore, Mattson stresses that to learn to fail, you have to be able to separate yourself from your task in an emotional sense. Your identity is not in your task or its outcome. This is definitely easier said than done, but as Christians, we have a solid place to put our identity that will never fail. Lucky us!