Photo of professional basketball players playing

Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images

Article Options

Presentation View
Teaching Resources

Language

Ready, Set, Fail!

No one likes to fail. But find out why it can actually be good for you.

As You Read, Think About: When have you failed at something? Did that end up helping you in some way?

One of the world’s best basketball players was talking to reporters after a game this past April. His team, the Milwaukee Bucks, had just lost in the first round of the playoffs. A reporter asked: Had the season been a failure? Giannis Antetokounmpo (YAH-nis ahn-teh-tuh-KOOM-poh) didn’t like the question. 

“There’s no failure in sports,” the superstar said. “Some days you are able to be successful, some days you’re not.”

Antetokounmpo explained that working toward a goal, even if you don’t reach it, is a step toward success. Many experts say that’s a powerful message for when things don’t go your way—whether your team lost a game, you didn’t get the highest grade on a test, or you baked a cake that tasted awful.

“Failure is not as horrible as you might think it is,” says psychologist Samuel West.

It may be hard to believe, but experts say losses and other setbacks are actually good for us.

Gary Dineen/NBAE via Getty Images

“It’s not a failure. It’s steps to success.”

—Giannis Antetokounmpo (No. 34) after his team’s season ended with a loss

Everybody Fails

West knows a lot about failure—he has even built his career around it. In 2018, he created the Museum of Failure. It includes more than 150 products that flopped. Many of them were made by successful companies like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Google. West says one of the goals of the museum is to show people that making mistakes isn’t all that bad.

There’s no way to avoid failure. That’s true for everyone—from parents and teachers to champion athletes and award-winning scientists.

“You can fail 1,000 times and still be very successful,” West says.

Learn From Mistakes

Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images

On his fourth try, Dev Shah won the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

Chances are, your first attempt at anything new won’t work out well. Your second, 10th, and 20th tries may not go so well either—and that’s OK. Making mistakes is an important part of the process.

“We can learn much more from failure than we learn from success,” West explains.

One of the items at West’s museum is Nintendo’s Power Glove. When it was released in 1989, it was unlike any other video game controller. Players wore the glove and used hand gestures to move characters on-screen. But the Power Glove was a flop. It was complicated to set up and didn’t work well.

Nintendo still believed in the idea of a motion-sensing controller. After working for years to improve the technology, the company released the Wii in 2006. It went on to sell more than 100 million copies.

Museum of Failure (Power Glove); Philippe Lissac/Getty Images (Wii); Shutterstock.com (letters)

Failure: Nintendo Power Glove (top); Success: Nintendo Wii (bottom)

Stick With It

It’s OK to get a little discouraged when you don’t succeed immediately, but there’s a lot of value in not giving up.

"It's really about sticking with something and pushing through,” explains psychologist Amanda Mintzer. “It’s so rewarding when you can see that hard work actually pays off.”

Fourteen-year-old Dev Shah knows all about the benefits of perseverance. He had competed in the Scripps National Spelling Bee twice, but his highest finish was 51st place. Last year, he didn’t make it into the competition. This year? He was crowned the national champion. The victory—after his previous disappointments—taught him an important lesson.

“It gave me the reassurance that I should never give up, no matter what,” he told The New York Times.

So the next time something doesn’t go the way you want, remember: You haven’t failed. You’ve just taken another step toward success.

Train Your Brain

When dealing with failure, don’t be too hard on yourself. Here are some tips for staying positive.
 

Instead of . . . I’m not good at this.

Think This . . . What am I missing?


Instead of . . . I give up.

Think This . . . I’ll try a different strategy.


Instead of . . . I can’t make this any better.

Think This . . . I can always improve.


Instead of . . . This is too hard.

Think This . . . This may take some time.


Instead of . . . My plan didn’t work.

Think This . . . There’s always plan B.

1. What are the main ideas of the section “Everybody Fails”?

2. Why did Samuel West include the Nintendo Power Glove in his Museum of Failure? Cite evidence from the text to support your response.

3. Why does the author include the sidebar, “Train Your Brain”?

Skills Sheets (2)
Skills Sheets (2)
Games (1)
Slideshows (1)
TEACHER SUPPORT (1)
Text-to-Speech