Try, try again: Failure can lead to eventual success, but not as often as most assume

Everyone is familiar with the popular platitude that failure today can promote success tomorrow. The exact wording can vary, but the central message always remains the same: Failure is inevitable in life; what really separates the winners from the losers is picking oneself back up again after a defeat or misstep and giving it another go.

Noteworthy new findings recently published by The American Psychological Association, however, have come to the rather surprising conclusion that failure doesn’t actually promote success nearly as often as most people believe. Study authors from Northwestern University stress another key component is necessary in order to truly benefit from failure and build success in its wake. This article will break down their findings in greater detail. 

Resolve alone isn’t enough

Regardless of the intended end goal (writing an engaging novel, cooking a delicious meal, passing an important exam, etc), persistence is usually named as a key asset in the pursuit of success. Endless experts, pundits, and gurus alike are quick to tell anyone that will listen that perseverance in the face of failure is an integral aspect of eventually landing that coveted Michelin star or passing the bar exam.

While that’s certainly advice worth heeding, this latest report indicates attaining true success requires more than tenacity and patience. In fact, the research team even posits such a misguided set of beliefs may be downright detrimental to society as a whole. 

More specifically, after conducting a total of 11 experiments encompassing over 1,800 people, and then comparing national statistics to those participants’ responses, the team at NU found people tend to vastly overestimate how frequently failure acts as a precursor for success. For example, during one initiative the participants majorly overestimated just how many teachers, lawyers, and nurses went on to eventually pass their respective licensing exams following an initial failing grade.

“People expect success to follow failure much more often than it actually does,” says lead researcher Lauren Eskreis-Winkler, PhD, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University, in a press release. “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.”

The missing ingredient? Learning

No one enjoys dwelling on past failures and disappointments, but study authors posit doing so is a key component of reaping the benefits of success later on. Put another way, if we don’t learn from our mistakes then they really were all for nothing – and they certainly won’t help produce a more positive outcome later on. Many experiments put together for this project discovered that people usually erroneously assume others pay close attention to their mistakes in order to learn from them. One experiment saw a group of nurses overestimate how much their coworkers would learn from a prior mistake.

“People often confuse what is with what ought to be,” Prof. Eskreis-Winkler adds. “People ought to pay attention and learn from failure, but often they don’t because failure is demotivating and ego-threatening.”

When assumptions backfire

The belief that failure is nothing more than a precursor to success holds a number of troubling potential real-world implications, researchers theorize. Here’s one striking example: one experiment saw a group of participants wrongly assume a collection of heart patients would go on to adopt healthier lifestyles following a health scare. That wasn’t the case for many of those patients.

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

A promising solution

All that being said, the study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, also documents how people usually change their expectations regarding failure and subsequent success after being provided with information on the negligible benefits of failure. Across two experiments conducted for this project, subjects became much more supportive of both taxpayer funding for rehabilitation programs for former inmates and drug treatment programs after learning about prior low rates of success for people using such programs.

“Correcting our misguided beliefs about failure could help shift taxpayer dollars away from punishment toward rehabilitation and reform,” Prof. Eskreis-Winkler concludes.

On a more individual level, this work serves as a timely reminder to us all that self-reflection and introspection are key to cultivating success after a defeat, mistake, or failure. No one should assume a different outcome is coming simply because they’re trying again. A careful examination of what previously went right, and what went wrong, is essential to finding success later on.