Do you learn more from a resounding success or a crashing failure?
Despite the love many have of saying they’ve got a degree from the “school of hard knocks,” research now proves that we learn significantly more from when we win than when we lose.
As the latest issue of “Harvard Business Review” reports, a team at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory documented in a study originally published in the journal “Neuron” that success literally changes the brain. “Equally important and somewhat surprising,” the article notes, is that the opposite – failure – “has no impact.”
In other words, according to this study, we learn much more from success than from failure.
“If you get a reward, the brain remembers what it did right. But with failure (unless there is a clear negative consequence, like the shock a child feels when she sticks something in an electrical outlet), the brain isn’t sure what to store, so it doesn’t change at all.”
So…what does this mean to YOU as you start the new year?
Surprisingly, perhaps, I’m going to suggest that it means you need to re-examine your failures of the past year. Where you could have performed at a higher level? Where did you really mess it up?
MIT’s research shows your brain has already stored, processed, and improved because of your achievements. Therefore, to make lasting improvements you need to spend time examining and considering what you need to learn from those times where you did not achieve the success you desired.
If you’ve wondered why it seems that people repeat their mistakes – now we know. It’s because we didn’t learn and grow from our errors…in part, because the brain grows and integrates success, and tends to ignore failure.
And, it means in our lives – and as we lead others – we need to celebrate success, while we make a specific effort to learn and grow from when it doesn’t work out quite the way we want.
Is the “school of hard knocks” a good teacher?
January 9, 2010 · 4 comments
Do you learn more from a resounding success or a crashing failure?
Despite the love many have of saying they’ve got a degree from the “school of hard knocks,” research now proves that we learn significantly more from when we win than when we lose.
As the latest issue of “Harvard Business Review” reports, a team at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory documented in a study originally published in the journal “Neuron” that success literally changes the brain. “Equally important and somewhat surprising,” the article notes, is that the opposite – failure – “has no impact.”
“If you get a reward, the brain remembers what it did right. But with failure (unless there is a clear negative consequence, like the shock a child feels when she sticks something in an electrical outlet), the brain isn’t sure what to store, so it doesn’t change at all.”
So…what does this mean to YOU as you start the new year?
MIT’s research shows your brain has already stored, processed, and improved because of your achievements. Therefore, to make lasting improvements you need to spend time examining and considering what you need to learn from those times where you did not achieve the success you desired.
If you’ve wondered why it seems that people repeat their mistakes – now we know. It’s because we didn’t learn and grow from our errors…in part, because the brain grows and integrates success, and tends to ignore failure.
And, it means in our lives – and as we lead others – we need to celebrate success, while we make a specific effort to learn and grow from when it doesn’t work out quite the way we want.