How to overcome your mistakes

Explore what prevents us from learning from our failures, and how to become more resilient through cultivating a growth mindset.

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People often describe failure as a teachable moment— a necessary stumble on our way to improvement. But learning from our mistakes isn’t always easy, especially when those failures are demoralizing, overwhelming, or just downright confusing. So what prevents us from turning our mistakes into mastery? Explore the biggest obstacles of learning from failure, and how to cultivate a growth mindset.

Directed by Luiz Stockler.

This video made possible in collaboration with Character Lab

A special thanks to Lauren Eskreis-Winkler who provided information and insights for the development of this video.

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Thank you so much to our patrons for your support! Without you this video would not be possible! Kyanta Yap, Rebecca Reineke, William Biersdorf, Patricia Alves Panagides, Yvette Mocete, Cyrus Garay, Samuel Barbas, LadyGeek, Marin Kovachev, Penelope Misquitta, Hans Peng, Gaurav Mathur, Erik Biemans, Tony, Michelle, Katie and Josh Pedretti, Hoai Nam Tran, Kack-Kyun Kim, Michael Braun-Boghos, zjweele13, Anna-Pitschna Kunz, Edla Paniguel, Thomas Mungavan, Jaron Blackburn, Venkat Venkatakrishnan, ReuniteKorea, Aaron Henson, Rohan Gupta, Begum Tutuncu, Brian Richards, Jørgen Østerpart, Tyron Jung, Carsten Tobehn, Katie Dean, Ezgi Yersu, Gerald Onyango, alessandra tasso, Doreen Reynolds-Consolati, Manognya Chakrapani, Ayala Ron, Eunsun Kim, Phyllis Dubrow, Ophelia Gibson Best, Paul Schneider, Joichiro Yamada, Henrique Cassús, Karthik Cherala, Clarence E. Harper Jr., Vignan Velivela, Ana Maria, Exal Enrique Cisneros Tuch, Tejas Dc, Khalifa Alhulail, Martin Stephen, Jose Henrique Leopoldo e Silva, Mandeep Singh and Abhijit Kiran Valluri.

[colintys]

Love how they made a video on how to study effectively after my exam and immediately after made a video on how to cope with failure.

[JohnMalta-bssr]

I feel like a big reason why it is difficult to learn from failure is that we are not taught to accept it early on. My engineering professor had a saying "fail quickly and move on". He did not accept assignments until we had shown failed designs and our analysis of why they were wrong. This really helped me change my mindset.

[btheolatap]

"Building on what you're doing right can be more effective than focusing on what you did wrong"

[leonardodepinto]

Kudos to the animators behind this video. The animation is so well-executed; it's impossible not to be impressed.

[DMage]

In my experience, I think the main issue with failure is that when your mistakes are recorded (i.e. grades), there is a risk factor that has long-term consequences.

Suppose you struggled learning square roots. You take the exam on square roots and you get a failing grade. You decide to study harder and mastered square roots. Well guess what, the exam is already done and you will not have any more opportunities to prove that you overcome the failure of square roots. Your initial grade is practically fixed and will likely set you back for a long time or permanently.

Even if you overcome your "failure", any bad grade you already received will permanently remain and prevent you to succeed if enough failures occurred. This is especially messed up when your opportunities for scholarships or other educational opportunities is highly determined by your grades.

Because of this, I always was driven to succeed to be able to have opportunities like scholarships, but at the cost of having a crippling fear of failure.

[Turquoise-Official]

I love how even the intro has a mistake!! The attention to detail of these animators is crazy❤❤

[bawbsmith]

I have to say, I didn’t expect the conclusion to be so… unhelpful.

The title of the video is “how to overcome your mistakes” but the conclusion is to focus on your successes. The example with the exam, and how these kinds of failures are the hardest to learn from, is probably where people struggle the most. And yet it’s brushed off by saying “focus on what you did right”, despite that not being helpful in actually finding out what went wrong!

I felt like this video’s message was unclear, and therefore ultimately unhelpful, to those who are currently struggling with failure.

[xMMMLK]

It’s funny how dealing with a failure makes us feel demoralized and in turn sets us up for more failures so that we end up in a downward spiral. Wonderful insights that we can use to succeed again

[Noukz]

As a teacher of Chinese students for almost 10 years, I could share many examples of how their educational system treats mistakes in the worst possible way. It is diminishing any last bits of confidence those poor kids have in such a competitive environment. I grew up in Bosnia, but after living in China for some time, I'm happy I got the education I did, and so should you (probably).

[Mintand_cinnamon]

Just two weeks before my exam when I was sick of making silly mistakes and didn't know how to overcome them? WOWW

[Roxelle.]

Wow... As someone who suffers from general anxiety, I felt this deep from my soul. I just went to therapy an hour ago and we had the best discussion plus she recommended me this! This is just, amazing. I'm so happy

[keroro]

I failed my entrance exam many times, and it really hurt my self esteem and my ability to learn. Doesn't help when I alone failed, while my friends passed on first try. I don't know what I did wrong, and they don't know how to help either.

Sure, you should focus on your success, and never over fixated on your failure, but small success that doesn't out weight all your pass failures. For that you need overwhelming success, to the point where you forget your pass failures.

[zenithstrikerz]

I remember when I was in secondary school, I was put in the top set for maths during year 7 but had trouble with anxiety. Although I kept up with the work my teacher decided that I wasn’t succeeding in the stressful environment. Without asking me or giving me any forewarning she moved me down two sets. One day I went in to class and she said that I needed to go to another classroom. After that I felt like such a failure that I ended up doubting my own skill and as a result my grades stopped improving as I truly believed that I was no good. I only found out the truth at parents evening, my mum waited until the last moment to talk to my old maths teacher and question why I had been moved down two sets.
The sense of being a failure meant that I did not believe I could improve and I worry that others are going through something similar today. It’s a horrible feeling that sticks with you, the fear that you will fail never goes away entirely but it is important to keep trying. If you fail over and over in succession then having a break will help, do something you enjoy and know that you are good at before trying to tackle whatever it is that has caused you so much stress. You will succeed eventually, just make sure to not run yourself into the ground in the process.

[manastic]

"Your tolerance for failure also depends on your relationship with the task at hand." Have intrinsic joy for the subject at hand and you will get through the difficult bits without the need for much motivation.

[falmgalm]

Notes:

In overcoming one's mistakes, it is better to focus on the things you did right than the things you did wrong. Retaining your self-esteem, self-confidence, and perception of self-competence is extremely important for your resolve, and motivation.

Events and scenarios which shatter your self-perception of efficiency and competence according to a 2019 study had an negative impact on success.

Those who failed the first rigged test failed more later on while those who won the first rigged test succeeded more alter on.

Overcoming one's mistakes relies on knowing yourself, knowing what you want, why, protecting one's successful self-image, and growing a resiliency against feelings of failure in order to prevent motivation deterioration, and foster a positive success based mental environment.

[alexandradelliou]

I'm so appreciative of Ted-Ed. Every time I feel set back, they upload un uplifting, grounded little video that changes your perspective and helps you understand truly understand things.

[fkmyoutube]

It's okay to fail.

Don't believe your self talk and others that say you are a failure.

Keep trying.

Try other things.

Try other methods.

But just keep trying.

Don't be afraid of failure.

[Vik]

So what I got from this video is that if you fail, it is important to at least turn it into a lesson. Fretting over it will achieve nothing but only make things worse.

If you succeed, cherish it and you can also learn from it. No matter what happens, keep moving forward.

[thedarkestsunn]

Ohhh my gosh this makes so much sense I suffered with low self esteem a lot of my schooling and it reflected in my grades a lot. I’m starting to build it up and my grades have jumped so much! I am even working towards pursuing a new program :) I’m glad this connection was put out there

[Hiepphandang]

Playing the game with a lot of fun is much better than being disappointed because of our mistakes at first.
So focus on the thing you do good in order to make your brain work more effectively