The way we think about the challenges we face deeply influences our final performance. Try honestly asking yourself whether you really want to succeed in the challenge, or whether you are just looking for a way to avoid mistakes. Trying to succeed and avoiding failure are two very different things.
Imagine, for example, you are going to give an important presentation. When trying to succeed, you will think about how you can deliver your message in order to capture the highest level of your audience's attention. However, if you are trying to avoid failure, you will think about how to make the presentation as quickly as possible without embarrassing yourself. Psychologist Amy Morin, the author of the worldwide bestselling book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do, writes about it in an interesting article the Psychology Today website. She draws attention to the following reasons why we should not try to avoid mistakes.
If someone refuses to admit a possible failure
- He wastes time, effort and money on tasks that can't be met.
- He is not able to receive new information that may reveal new possibilities.
- He uses the same solutions, which have already proved to be bad.
- He experiences more stress and the related feelings of sadness, anxiety or aggression.
- He fails to recognize that failure will come anyway.
"The more you insist that failure isn’t an option, the more likely you’ll be fail," concludes Amy Morin.
Book
MORIN, Amy: 13 Things Mentally Strong People Do not Do New York: HarperCollins, 2014. 272 p.
-kk-