The Science of Small Wins
Nobody enjoys failing. It’s never really what you set out to do.
At Spotify, failure is cause for celebration, because it’s seen as an opportunity for growth. Jonas Aman, who is part of Spotify’s People Operations team, told us that instead of treating setbacks like speed bumps you rumble over in the course of running a business, they “celebrates thing that don’t work. It’s about the effort, not the result.”
Sometimes, failure calls for cake.
During a wonderful conversation with my friend, Beck Tench, she told me about an interesting shift in thinking that occurred while she worked at a science museum. Beck said that she learned how to treat failure like a scientist.
How do scientists treat failure? What can we learn from their approach?
New Year’s resolutions may be losing popularity. Only about a third of Americans made New Year’s resolutions for 2014, down 10% from just two years ago, according to a CBS News poll.
Maybe people have wised up to the fact that most resolutions don’t succeed or think there’s a better way to embark on habit changes and goals than this annual tradition.
That doesn’t mean New Year’s resolutions are completely useless. Let’s take a step back and look at the science of why New Year’s resolutions still make sense, how to make them stick, and why it’s okay if you fail.
Guest columnist James Chin is a professional poker player who has previously written about flow, having the courage to change, and the truth about success. In this post, he examines how best to dust yourself off and try again.
Failure demotivates and saps the energy of even the most confident of people, especially if they’re not receiving some sort of positive feedback from their day.
It’s an old relationship cliche that you should never go to bed upset with your significant other. Waking up upset the next day just serves to reinforce negative feelings you have between each other. Use this advice in your relationship to yourself.
I’ve come up with a way to make sure I don’t get too down and can bounce back sooner than later. It’s simple: take time to create that positive feedback. You’ll be much more likely to wake up the next day motivated and ready to be productive and tackle whatever life may throw at you. Here’s how:
Dan John is a weightlifting coach. He is well-known in the fitness world for keeping things simple (and you should always fear a man with two first names). Recently I heard Dan John say:
I often tell my new athletes: “Sorry, you just are not good enough to be disappointed.”
In other words, in the beginning you need to get comfortable with feeling stupid, uncertain, and unskilled.
You’re not allowed to be disappointed by your performance because you haven’t developed your skills yet. It’s only the professionals that are allowed to be disappointed because they have put in the work to be better.
But you and me? We’re not good enough to be disappointed yet. We’re bad enough to get to work.
