Failure as Rocket Fuel

Lately I’ve been studying the game of chess, and while I’m still very much a beginner and not good at the game, it’s been teaching me a lot about the learning process. One of the best lessons is that my mistakes fuel the engine of my growth as a player.

This applies, of course, to everything we’re doing in life. When we’re in a learning or growth process, we’re inevitably going to mess up. If we aren’t making some mistakes, we’re probably not growing, because we’re doing something we’re already good at!

Let’s take a few examples:

• Learning a language: if you’re getting every sentence correct, you’re only speaking the sentences you already know. It’s when you start to forget words or phrases that you’re pushing into territory you don’t know. And those forgotten or mangled words or phrases will show you what you’ve forgotten, so you can study and practice and eventually incorporate it into your known territory.
• Forming a new habit: If you do the habit perfectly, it was probably a bit too easy for you (and that’s not a bad way to start). It’s when you struggle a bit with the habit that you’re going into the discomfort zone and really growing, and the struggles will illuminate the areas you need to grow and what you need to learn.
• Taking on a meaningful project: Some projects are easy, and you can knock them out in a few days. But longer-term projects that have some challenge to them will show us where our inner resistance is, and teach us something about ourselves. Not “how am I crappy” but rather, where do I get caught up in worrying about my self-image, or what can I learn about my motivation?

These examples aren’t exhaustive — this idea applies to learning how to be a rock climber (or any other sport), getting better at dealing with conflict (or any relationship aspect), public speaking, growing your business, studying something in school, and much more.

Mistakes turn into growth or they turn into nothing

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