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92% of people fail to reach their goals. A study done by the University of Scranton showed that only 8% of people actually manage to achieve their goals. 

Around 70% of relationships fail within the first year, 50% of new businesses fail within the first five years, and 32.9% of undergraduate students drop out of college every year. Scary numbers, what do they all have in common?

Failure. It’s a word that often stirs up feelings of discomfort, shame, and doubt and is often seen as a setback, a sign that we aren’t good enough, or that we’ve reached the end of the road.

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But when we shift our perspective, we can see that failure is not the opposite of success—it is part of the process and an amazing tool, but if you can admit it.

We Don’t Admit Our Failures

One of the reasons failure is so difficult to embrace is that we don’t like to admit it. Dale T. Miller, in his article for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, explains that we hesitate to talk about our failures, instead attributing our successes to internal factors such as effort, skills, or experience. We want to protect our self-image.

In her book Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz explains the phenomenon of “error blindness.” She writes, “We can be wrong, or we can know it, but we can’t do both at the same time.” The moment we recognize that we are wrong, we stop believing it, so we find it almost impossible to admit our mistakes in the present. This denial of failure can lead to stagnation, as we resist learning from our errors.

The Surprising Misconception About Failure and Success

I believe that’s why there is a misconception about failure and success. People often assume that success will follow failure much more often than it actually does. “People usually assume that past behavior predicts future behavior, so it’s surprising that we often believe the opposite when it comes to succeeding after failure,” said Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, PhD, lead researcher and assistant professor at Northwestern University.

In her research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Dr. Eskreis-Winkler found that people frequently overestimate how much others learn from their mistakes. For instance, in one field test, nurses overestimated how much their colleagues would learn from a past error. Similarly, participants assumed that heart patients would adopt healthier lifestyles after failing to do so in the past—when, in reality, many of them do not.

“People who believe that problems will self-correct after failure are less motivated to help those in need,” Dr. Eskreis-Winkler noted. “Why would we invest time or money to help struggling populations if we erroneously believe that they will right themselves?”

This research highlights an important insight: failure does not automatically lead to success. So why is it that many people say ‘you need to fail to succeed’? It’s because if you approach the failed attempt with the right mindset, you’ve just found another way that doesn’t work. There is more to learn from failure than there is from success. Professor Noam Shpancer says,“When our goal is to minimize mistakes, a mistake is highly informative. A doctor who performs the same surgery successfully 99 out of 100 times may benefit more from studying the one failed surgery than studying the 99 successful ones”. 

So why doesn’t everyone approach failure this way? Why isn’t it easy?

It’s because, at its core, failure challenges our beliefs and perceptions. The connection between failure and our self-worth runs deep. According to Professor Martin Covington of The University of California, the fear of failure is directly linked to our sense of self-worth. Covington’s research on students, published in the Handbook of Motivation at School, found that one of the ways we protect our self-worth is by believing we are competent. The ability to achieve becomes critical in maintaining that self-worth. To fail to perform, then, means that we are not able, and therefore, not worthy, and in other words, not competent-which we don’t want to believe.

Covington’s research also highlights that when we don’t believe we have the ability to succeed—or when repeated failures diminish that belief—we often engage in practices that seek to preserve our self-worth. These practices usually take the form of excuses or defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from the pain of failure.

But failure does not define our worth unless we allow it to. By learning to approach failure with understanding, we can begin to build a healthier relationship with our setbacks.

Kristin Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas, has shown that people who practice self-compassion (instead of denial or excuses) recover more quickly from failure and are more likely to try new things, as they are less afraid of the possibility of falling short. That way, we can view failure as a natural part of the human experience. It is not a reflection of our worth but rather an invitation to grow. 

Failure as a Potentially Shameful Event

For individuals high in the fear of failure, achievement events are not simply opportunities to learn or improve; instead, they are threatening, judgment-oriented experiences. These events put one’s entire self on the line. In short, they are potentially shameful events. 

Brown’s work highlights the importance of self-acceptance and vulnerability in overcoming shame. In order to do great things in life, we must be willing to accept ourselves as we are, with all of our imperfections. However, this also means becoming more vulnerable to failure. Vulnerability, as challenging as it may be, is a necessary part of personal growth and living a more fulfilling life. 

So, looking back at the inspiring message of “you need to fail to succeed’, I say that is misleading without added context. Statistics say that 92% of people fail to reach their goals, but that doesn’t mean the remaining 8% didn’t fail; it means they didn’t let failure stop them. It means that 7.3 billion people couldn’t handle failure. It means it wasn’t seen as informative, it was seen as an insult, or perceived as ‘stop trying’. But for the 8%, they were only one step closer. 

The U.S Army Field Manual says “Other than death, all failure is psychological”, and I know at least 640 million people would agree with that, and that is 8% of the world population.

References
Williams, R. (2020, October 28). The psychology of failure: How to deal with it. Ray Williams
https://raywilliams.ca/psychology-failure-deal
American Psychological Association. (2024, June 11). The benefits of failure may be overrated. APA
https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2024/06/benefits-failure-overrated
South African College of Applied Psychology. (2021, October 6). The psychology of failure. SACAP
https://www.sacap.edu.za/blog/applied-psychology/the-psychology-of-failure
Williams, R. (2022, October 18). Failure is hard; learning from it may be harder. Psychology Today
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/insight-therapy/202210/failure-is-hard-learning-from-it-may-be-harder
Williams, R. (2020, October 28). The psychology of failure: How to deal with it. Ray Williams
https://raywilliams.ca/psychology-failure-deal
TEDx Talks. (2022, November 3). The science of failure | Alex Gendler | TEDxCopenhagen [Video]. YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxl3ChjEh-g

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