Flipping the Mindset: Reframing Fear and Failure to Catalyze Development

Responding to Failure: A Transformative Process

“…Rumination that remains individualistic and internalized can be detrimental, especially, for those with self-criticism pathology (Rahamim et al, 2016) or unhealthy motivational drives (Parker & Martin, 2011). It can also be difficult for those with a fixed mindset (Boyd et al, 2015), but beneficial for those with a growth mindset resulting in spiritual intelligence (Tedeschi & Triplett, 2012). As the research of Moser et al (2011) discovered, “The finding that mind-set was associated with both positive and negative responses to error suggest that a growth mindset is specifically associated with enhanced mediated error processing” (p. 1488).…”

“…Therefore, one must not simply avoid failure, nor merely self-ruminate, but rather learn and grow from it. As Boyd et al (2015) state, “when we avoid the risk of failure and all its attendant adrenaline, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to learn and grow. We need to be willing to fail in order to thrive” (p. 11).…”

“…A possible help to this end is redefining and reimagining the failure-event. Near the conclusion of their study on failure, Boyd et al (2015) observed,As one might imagine, participants use colorful language to describe the shame, sadness, disappointment, and fear associated with failure. At the conclusion of the workshop, we asked participants to close their eyes, revisit those responses, and imagine instead that the prompt was “How does it feel to learn?” In essence, we ask them to conclude by “flipping their mindset.” (p. 11)…”

“…Much that is defined as failure is due to the “conventional nature of expectations” (Kleinig, 2012, p. 1368), whereas O’Donnell (2014) encourages a reimagining of conventional understandings of success and failure, “so that failure might come to be understood not as being a failure and as a deficit of being… but in terms of the activity of failing” (p. 267). Here productive failure can become a space to achieve optimal learning (Kapur, 2016, p. 296), as people employ reflective strategies, both individual and collaborative (Bast & Barnes-Holmes, 2015; Boyd et al, 2015).…”