“If you don’t know the answer, then you are a Failure” – a motto all throughout our school life.
We were born fearless, brave, resolute. We speak our minds, we have brash words, “kids say the darnedest things!” No fear of the outcome, our only goal is to experiment, and learn!
Little Dave was in second grade. He took a quiz and didn’t know what the word “pores” meant. He opened his handy textbook to look up the word “pores.”
“Dave’s cheating! Dave’s cheating!,” his classmates yelled.
The teacher, dismayed, sent poor little Dave to detention. His parents were called and told of this “horrendous act.”
“Why did you do it, little Dave?,” a concerned mother asked.
“Because I didn’t know what ‘pores’ meant so I looked it up in my book. Don’t we learn with books?,” Little Dave inquired.
The adults went speechless for a second but managed to muster a brash reasoning.
“But you need to study first before the test. So you should already know the answers before taking a test.”
“But last week, our lesson was about Thomas Edison. How he learned from his mistakes. He made 1,000 mistakes before he invented the light bulb. How can I learn when the teacher fails me every time I’m wrong?”
The adults were stunned. Ashamed of themselves, they bought little Dave ice cream on the way home.
But it was too late. Something inside was planted by that experience - a rotten seed. A seed called, “the concept of failure.” From there on then, little Dave was so afraid of making mistakes that it crushed his learning process all throughout.
Studying for tests becomes a simple notion of memorizing the textbook – “memorizing the correct answer” temporarily until a new test arrives. The problem with this method is the short-term, “temporary” learning curve. Memorizing an answer has an “expiration date.” After a test has been taken, those “memorized answers” expire and be replaced by a new set of memorized answers.
We all went through that. And it’s sad, because we were born fearless.
- We pinched ourselves with a needle and learned to be careful with it.
- We put sand in our mouths and learned how dreadful it is.
- We touched a hot frying pan and learned not to go near it again.
- We did all kinds of crazy stunts in the pool until we learned how to properly swim (or at least float).
We learned!
Yet somewhere along the line, we got stumped by our “school’s learning protocol.” School taught us the concept of failure.
That concept taught us the “fear of failure and rejection.” And stumping us to the ground, keeping us in prison. And the only way to break free from that, is to kick fear to the curve and conquer life.
That’s right, stand up and fight, forget what the school “learning protocol” has taught you… dive in, make mistakes, learn, and succeed.
Start now. Start making mistakes. Don’t be afraid of the consequences (there are none). By deleting the concept of failure from our minds, we will grow more, learn more, and succeed!