How Does Your Teen Handle Failure?

How do you feel about failure?

Most of us aren’t crazy about it.

But at some point, no matter how hard we try, we’re going to fail at something.

So, it’s important to consider how to respond to failure when it does happen, and how to improve our resilience so we’re better able to bounce back from upsetting events.

There are a number of great ways to improve resilience, but one of the methods a number of our students have found to be helpful is reframing them as “system failures”, rather than personal failures.

Personal failure vs. System failure

There’s an enormous difference between viewing failure as the result of a flaw in the system or strategy you’re using, as opposed to a flaw in YOU.

It’s the difference between “I failed” and “My system failed”.

When your student interprets failures as personal flaws — like being “bad at math”, “unmotivated”, “disorganized”, or “a bad test taker”, they’re stuck.  There’s not a lot they can do to change who they are, so the chances of getting a better result next time are slim. They might as well just give up.

If, on the other hand, they think of failures as system flaws, all of a sudden it’s much less personal.  It’s not about THEM anymore, it’s about the system they were using to get those results.  And systems are much easier to change.

The benefits of systems thinking

• It makes change seem like a real possibility.  If your student’s system failed, it’s easy to change it!  Just get rid of it, and create a new one 🙂
• It leads to more creative solutions.  System failures are less personal.  Consequently, it’s much easier to evaluate them rationally, consider their pros & cons, and think creatively about options for how to change & improve them.
• There’s less of a temptation to avoid the problem.  Blaming ourselves for failures feels awful, so it becomes very tempting to avoid the issue entirely and distract ourselves with something more pleasant.  Of course, this does nothing to solve the underlying problem!  If your student is putting the blame on their system, instead, it’s much less upsetting and becomes a lot easier to address the problem rather than ignoring it.
• There’s less of a need to get defensive.  When people feel like they are being personally attacked, their instinct is to go on the defensive…at which point they are much more focused on justifying why they did what they did…and much less open to talking about what they could do differently next time.  People are much less invested in protecting their systems, so it’s a lot easier to have an open discussion about system failures than it is about personal failures.

Character is far less ‘fixed’ than we think!

Personality researchers used to have this idea that personalities were “fixed” aspects of a person’s character that didn’t really change.  But the reality is that if you put people in different situations, their behavior — and their results — will be dramatically different!

For example, imagine a student studying for his science test alone in his bedroom at 11 PM on the night before the exam, with the phone, computer, and TV on.

And compare that to the same student studying for the same test downstairs at the kitchen table — or at a campus library — for half an hour a day, over the course of several days before the exam, with no electronic distractions.

If the student in the first scenario failed his exam, would it make sense to conclude that he was “lazy”, “unmotivated”, or “bad at science”?  Of course not!  But it would certainly be valid to conclude that the system he was using to prepare for his science test had some serious flaws!

Is this just avoiding responsibility?

If your student thinks of their mistakes as system failures, rather than personal failures, does that mean they’re just avoiding responsibility for their mistakes?

NO.  

Avoiding responsibility would mean blaming the failure on someone else, by complaining that “I have a bad teacher” or “That professor’s exams are too hard.”

If your student blames failures on other people, then they’re stuck. They can’t MAKE other people change, so then they’re left with no power or ability to improve the situation. 

Blaming failure on the system they used to approach the situation is different, because YOUR STUDENT is the one who chose to use that system.  And just like any other tool they choose to use, THEY get to decide whether to continue using it as is, make some modifications & improvements to it, or toss it out and create a new one from scratch.

The point is, it’s up to them!  Far from avoiding responsibility, this approach encourages them to take responsibility for creating a system that will get them the results they want!

Final thoughts

When students shift their focus from blaming themselves after failure to focusing on the specific actions they can take to improve their results the next time around, it can have a huge impact on their mindset and motivation.

If you think your student would benefit from approaching their goals more systematically, we’re here to help! Feel free to set up a FREE 20-minute Parent Strategy Session where we’ll talk about your teen’s specific situation and some steps you can take to help set them up for success.

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About The Author

Dr. Maggie Wray is a certified ADHD Coach & Academic Life Coach with a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell and a Bachelor’s degree in Astrophysics from Princeton. She founded Creating Positive Futures in 2012 to help high school and college students learn how to earn better grades with less stress. Her team of dedicated coaches is on a mission to empower students to develop the mindset, organization, time management, and study skills they need to achieve their goals.