It's fine to celebrate success but it is more
important to heed the lessons of failure. --Bill Gates
Helping Kids Overcome Fear of Failure
--by Vicki Zakrzewski , syndicated from Greater Good, Mar 23, 2014
According
to the research on failure, students may need more than just grit to
succeed.
A
couple of weeks ago, a New
York Times op-ed asked the
question, “Are
kids too coddled?” In other words,
shouldn’t we let them fail once in awhile so they develop some backbone? Or
don’t they just need
more grit?
The
answer is not that simple because human beings are not that simple.
According
to UC Berkeley professor Martin Covington, the fear of failure is directly
linked to your self-worth, or the belief that you are valuable as a person. As a
result, Covington found that students will put themselves through unbelievable
psychological machinations in order to avoid failure and maintain the sense that
they are worthy—which, as all of us who have ever dealt with the fear of failure
know, can have long-term consequences.
Fortunately,
the research also provides tips for educators to help students deal with
feelings of failure—and help them to fulfill their true potential.
The Games We Play to Avoid Failure
Covington’s
years of research found that one way people protect
their self-worth is by believing
they are competent and making others believe it as well.
Hence,
the ability to achieve—and the quality of
performance that reveals that ability—is critical to maintaining self-worth.
This is particularly true in competitive situations such as school and, later,
the workplace. In a nutshell, failing to perform means that one is not able and,
therefore, not worthy.
If
a person doesn’t believe he or she has the ability to succeed—or if repeated
failures diminish that belief—then that person will begin, consciously or not,
to engage in practices or make excuses in order to preserve his or her
self-worth both in his or her own eyes and in the eyes of others. The more
intense the effort behind the failure, the more important the excuses or defense
mechanisms become.
Covington
found that, when it comes to dealing with failure, students generally fall into
four categories.
1.
Success-Oriented Students: These are the kids who love learning for the
sake of learning and see failure as a way to improve their ability rather than a
slight on their value as a human being. Research has also found that these
students tend to have parents who praise success and rarely, if ever, reprimand
failure.
2.
Overstrivers: These students
are what Covington calls the “closet-achievers.” They avoid failure by
succeeding—but only with herculean effort motivated solely by the fear that even
one failure will confirm their greatest fear: that they’re not perfect.
Because
the fear of failure is so overpowering and because they doubt their abilities,
Overstrivers will, on occasion, tell everyone that they have very little time to
prepare for an upcoming test—and then spend the entire night studying. When they
pass the test with flying colors, this “shows” everyone that they are brilliant
because their “ability” trumped the need to extend any effort.
3.
Failure-avoiding: These
students don’t expect to succeed—they just want to avoid failing. They believe
that if they extend a lot of effort but still fail, then this implies low
ability and hence, low worth. But if they don’t try and still fail, this will
not reflect negatively on their ability and their worth remains intact.
In
order to avoid failure that might be due to lack of ability, they do things such
as make excuses (the dog ate my homework), procrastinate, don’t participate, and
choose near-impossible tasks. However, this can put them into a tricky position
when they encounter a teacher who rewards effort and punishes for what appears
to be lack of effort or worse. Ultimately, there’s no way out for these
students—either they try and fail or they’re punished.
4.
Failure-accepting: These are
the hardest students to motivate because they’ve internalized failure—they
believe their repeated failures are due to lack of ability and have given up on
trying to succeed and thus maintain their self-worth. Any success they might
experience they ascribe to circumstances outside their control such as the
teacher giving them the easiest task in a group project.
Two
more points: Both failure-avoiding and failure-accepting students tend to focus
on non-academic areas where they can succeed, such as sports or art or even
risky behavior. And students who, in general, are motivated by fear of failure
tend to have parents who rarely praise success, and instead punish failure. This
leads these students to believe that their parents’ love is conditioned upon
their academic success.
Understanding
how the complexity of the fear of failure can lead some students to succeed in
school and others to give up makes it evident that telling students to “buck-up
and deal” when the going gets tough won’t work for many or most of them.
Overcoming the Fear of Failure
So
what can teachers do to help their students become success- rather than
failure-oriented? There are no easy answers and not all the research-based
suggestions below will work with each kind of failure-orientation. The key is
for teachers to know their students well and recognize when they are starting to
engage in failure-based behavior.
1.
Emphasize effort over ability.Thanks to Carol Dweck’s research onmindsets,
many teachers have started to give more importance to students’ efforts rather
than their “innate” ability. This is particularly important for teachers of
upper elementary students through university as research has shown that as
children get older, they tend to value ability over effort.
One
way to encourage effort is to provide specific feedback to students that
recognizes and praises effort. Studies have shown that students who receive this
kind of feedback are not only more
motivated to succeed, but also believe that they can succeed. However, be
careful not to tell students to try harder if they failed, particularly if a lot
of effort was expended to succeed. Otherwise, they may begin to doubt their
abilities and eventually become failure-avoidant or accepting.
2.
Encourage students to practice self-compassion when they fail. Covington suggests that at the heart of the
fear of failure is a push-pull between self-acceptance and being able to see
ourselves as we really are. This is where self-compassion can help.
Kristin
Neff writes in her book Self-Compassion that in order for self-compassion to be
effective, we have to first realize that, “Our true value lies in the core
experience of being a conscious being who feels and perceives.” In other words,
rather than making our self-worth contingent on categories such as academic
success, appearance, or popularity, we must value ourselves solely for the fact
that we are human beings and accept that failure is part of the human
experience.
When
we do that, it is easier for us to extend compassion to ourselves when we fail.
Rather than beating ourselves up for not being perfect in something like
academics—as the Overstriver might do—we practice self-talk that is kind and
compassionate. This makes it easier to look realistically at what caused the
failure and then consider what can be done to improve next time.
Research
has found that people who practice self-compassion recover more
quickly from failure and are more
likely to try new things—mainly because they know they won’t face a negative
barrage of self-talk if they fail.
3.
Build positive relationships with students. This is particularly important for students
who are failure-avoidant or accepting. Research has shown that students are motivated to try their
best when teachers to whom they
feel attached value academic tasks. Studies have also shown the opposite to be
true—that students are less
motivated when faced with teachers
whom they feel don’t care about them.
One
final suggestion that Covington makes is to talk with students about how the
fear of failure might be impacting their lives. When he did this with
undergraduates, he found that they were grateful for the information as it
helped them take control of their attitude and behavior toward schoolwork.
Deepening
our understanding of the fear of failure not only can make us more compassionate
and understanding of our students—but of ourselves as well.
