BBC随身英语｜从失败中学习的聪明方法
英音听力｜BBC & 经济学人等
Smarter ways to learn from failure
Many of us were told from an early age that, be it at school or in life, "you learn from your mistakes". But is this actually true?
The short answer is 'yes' – failure can be a teachable moment. But learning from our mistakes is, in reality, very hard because we don't like to fail. It doesn't feel good, so we react to failure in impulsive and emotional ways, like giving up on a task prematurely, telling ourselves we don't care whether we succeed, or finding fault with the task itself.
This is self-protective, according to Hallgeir Sjåstad, a professor of psychology and leadership at the Norwegian School of Economics. "Most of us want to think of ourselves as competent and capable", he says, so when we fail "it poses a serious threat to our self-image".
Fortunately, there is research to suggest that there are some strategies to help us overcome the emotional barriers around failure. One of them is to adopt a third-person perspective. Instead of asking "Why did I fail?", we could ask "Why did Sam fail?", for example. Multiple studies by psychologist Ethan Kross at the University of Michigan show that adopting a third-person perspective helps to soften our negative emotional reactions, allowing us to look at failure more objectively.
A second strategy involves offering advice to others who may be in the same position as us. This strategy led to better levels of motivation and academic success in the test groups – involving both adults and children – that were asked to give advice based on their own failures. Professors Eskreis-Winkler, Fishbach and Duckworth found that the satisfaction of helping others "forces people to engage with their experience and what they have learned".
The writer Samuel Beckett once said: "fail again, fail better". But it now seems that we should be saying: "fail again, fail smarter". Failure is an inevitable part of life, but by learning to overcome the emotional barriers around it, we may find the road to success is a little easier to navigate.
词汇表
teachable moment [ˈtiːtʃəbl] 可教时刻，教育契机，汲取教训的时刻
impulsive [ɪmˈpʌlsɪv] adj. 冲动的，易冲动的
prematurely [ˈpremətʃə(r)li] adv. 过早地，草率地
find fault with 挑剔，找茬
self-protective [ˌself prəˈtektɪv] adj. 自我保护的
Norwegian [nɔː(r)ˈwiːdʒən] adj. 挪威的；n. 挪威人
competent [ˈkɒmpɪtənt] adj. 能干的，能胜任的
capable [ˈkeɪpəbl] adj. 有能力的，有才能的
pose a threat to 对…构成威胁
self-image [ˌself ˈɪmɪdʒ] n. 自我形象，自我认知
emotional barriers [ˈbæriəz] 情绪障碍，情感障碍
third-person perspective 第三人称视角
soften [ˈsɒfən] v. 使缓和，使变软，变温和
objectively [əbˈdʒektɪvli] adv. 客观地，不带偏见地
engage with 深入参与，与…互动/打交道，直面
inevitable [ɪnˈevɪtəbl] adj. 不可避免的，必然的
navigate [ˈnævɪɡeɪt] v. 导航，找到方向，应对，处理
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