Name: Positive Psychology Tip - Risks and finding the good in failure
Uploaded: 2025-07-20T19:17:38.000Z
Duration: 4 min 43 s
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Many of my students tend to cite it as one of the things they are most afraid of.

Adverbs of manner

In our achievement-oriented culture, where people seem to increasingly lack free time, there's been an increasing tendency to think of failure as unacceptable, as wasted time that may even reflect poorly on someone's character, skills, or self-discipline.

In reality, though, if you're on a path toward growth and exploration, failure is unavoidable and even beneficial.

When we fear failure, we hinder innovation, and we make ourselves more afraid in general, which increases our anxiety to the detriment of our emotional well-being.

Of course, there are plenty of times when failure is not alright, and there are many workplace responsibilities and projects where it's important to uphold the highest standards that prohibit failure.

But thinking of failure as a universal negative across the board, and as something always to avoid in every area of your life, easily leads to self-sabotage.

When was the last time you failed at something?

Perhaps you pitched a new idea at work and it was shot down by your director.

They told you it wasn't aligned with the business strategy.

Or maybe you just tried to cook something that turned out really poorly.

When it comes to your work pitch, remind yourself that you practiced using your voice and taking feedback.

And maybe your wrecked cooking attempt was at least a humorous experience.

A failed attempt at something means that we had the motivation, curiosity, and tenacity to try.

Failures are intertwined with creativity, one of the fundamental pillars of positive psychology.

The very definition of creativity involves risk-taking, exploring new, different ideas, choosing paths that aren't the same well-worn ones that everybody else chooses.

Is there a way to regularly take risks without having the occasional failure?

Think about small ways you can embrace creativity in your own life and therefore increase your level of healthy risk-taking.

Start by thinking about how you can welcome novelty.

Why not rearrange your workspace to shake things up?

Or try a new organizing system for your desk.

If it fails and you don't like it as much, you can always change things back.

How about trying a different route to work or experimenting with a new lunch routine?

Trying a new cuisine, visiting a new place on a weekend, or seeking out a new perspective can all help widen your worldview, which helps lessen your fear.

Another way to encourage creative risk-taking, which pays off in innovation as well, is making sure to value exploration for its own sake, without over-focusing on the finished result.

Valuing the experience rather than the finished achievement.

Finally, decades of research on the growth mindset have taught us that when we believe we can develop skills with practice and exploration, we are much more likely to persevere than when we think our skills are fixed as traits, like being intelligent.

When we embrace change and growth, rather than believing that our most important qualities are set, we are more likely to continue to develop.

So watch how you talk to yourself when you do have a task that doesn't go the way you  Do you tell yourself it's because of something that you can't change, like you're not hard-working enough?

Or do you tell yourself that you need more practice, and to learn more, and to work at developing that skill?

Embracing creativity, risk-taking, and the growth mindset will help you feel that you are flourishing at work, rather than being stuck.