We learn a great deal from failures. We all do and we all fail even though we often hide this from others. The reason we learn so much is that failures are very emotional experiences where we discover that some of the key assumptions on which we were relying are incorrect. We can then replace those weak assumptions with stronger correct assumptions and learn valuable lessons.

Wise people learn from the failures of others and gain the same benefits without the costs of experiencing the failures themselves. How do you learn from your or others’ failures? When we replace weak assumptions with stronger ones, we will be spared repeating failures.

We can learn from failures and even turn them into successes.

“I’ve made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon.com. Literally. None of these things are fun, but they also don’t matter. What matters is that companies that don’t continue to experiment or embrace failure eventually get in the position where the only thing they can do is make a Hail Mary bet at the end of their corporate existence.” — Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

Do you find that you are repeating the failures of others? Or your own failures? How can you prevent this from happening?

If failures are so valuable then why are they not tolerated in our society as much as they take place? Are you allowed to fail in your workplace without penalty? If you are not allowed to fail then how is innovation and risk taking encouraged, or is it?

One of the reasons that failure is looked down on in our society is because many of us were punished for making mistakes and failing in our schooling. Read this interesting post about this at http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/12/teachers-dont-like-creative-students.html

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. — Unknown

Failures are part of life. If you don’t fail, you don’t learn. If you don’t learn you’ll never change. — Unknown

Many successful innovative professionals will share with you their stories of their failures on their road to success. No one can achieve significant success in their work without experiencing and learning from failures.

Watch this video presentation that explains that there are two types of mindsets we can cultivate. One that embraces problems as opportunities to learn, and one that avoids them, often out of fear of failing. People that avoid conflicts can be described as having a fixed mindset. Those who see problems as interesting challenges have a growth mindset. Sometimes we like to switch from one to the other. This is based on the research of Carol Dweck.