Module 11 · Reflection & learning from experience · Lesson 5 of 7

Learning from failure — and from success

We study our failures and celebrate our successes. Both deserve the same curiosity.

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The idea

After a failure, people tend to analyse: what went wrong, whose fault, what to change. After a success, they tend to celebrate and move on. Both responses are understandable, but both miss something.

Learning from failure works best without harshness. The aim is to understand what happened well enough to act differently — which is much easier when you are curious rather than self-punishing. Many failures turn out to have several causes, some of which were outside your control.

Learning from success is often overlooked. Why did it go well? Was it skill, preparation, timing, other people, luck? Successes that are not understood cannot be repeated on purpose, and a success that was mostly luck can create false confidence.

Why it matters

Studying only failures gives a skewed picture and can make learning feel painful. Studying successes too shows you what to repeat, and gives a truer picture of your abilities.

See it happen

Alina’s first market stall selling candles sold out in two hours. Her second stall, a month later, barely sold anything.

The first read

She thinks the first day proved her candles are great, so the second must have been bad luck with the weather.

With this idea

She reflects on both. The first stall was at a Christmas market with gift-shoppers; the second was at a food market where people were not looking for gifts. Now she knows where her customers are and books the next two gift markets.

What changed

She studied the success as carefully as the failure.

Easy to get wrong

• Treating every success as proof of skill. Some of it may have been luck or timing.
• Treating every failure as proof of a flaw. Some of it may have been circumstance.

Different perspectives

Reasonable people disagree here. None of these is presented as the final word.

Separate skill from luck

Thinking in bets suggests looking at both good and bad outcomes and asking how much came from decisions and how much from luck.

Luck can become an excuse

Others warn that blaming luck for failures and crediting skill for successes is a very human bias; honest reflection has to check both directions.

What this rests on

Practical wisdom. A widely used way of working. Useful to try — not a scientific law.

• Annie Duke — Thinking in Bets (2018) — A former professional poker player on separating the quality of a decision from the luck of its outcome, and on keeping a record of your reasoning.

Try it: One of each

1. Pick one recent thing that went well and one that did not.
2. For each, write the causes you can see — yours, others’, circumstance, luck.
3. Write one lesson from each.

Reflect

• What success of yours do you not fully understand?
• Which failure are you still blaming entirely on yourself — or entirely on others?

Use it in the coming days

In your next review, include one success and ask why it went well — as carefully as you would ask about a problem.

Where to do it: My Reviews

A review is the natural time to study both what went well and what did not.