Buffalo Bills kicker Scott Norwood walks off the field after missing what would have been the game-winning field goal against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV. Chris O’Meara/AP Photo
Failure is a part of life, and we make mistakes pretty much every day. How do we cope? Or better yet, how should we cope?
Academics and the mainstream media tend to offer a simple solution: Don’t let it get to you and think about how things could have been worse.
These self-protective thoughts usually make you feel better. You move on.
But is it possible that popular wisdom is missing a bit of the puzzle? Does setting aside the negative emotions make you any less likely to repeat the mistake? Noelle Nelson, Baba Shiv and I decided to explore possible upsides of feeling bad about failure.
Feeling the pain
Even though they’re unpleasant, we feel negative emotions for a reason: They likely played an important role in human evolution and survival.
Negative emotions tell us to pay attention, signaling that something’s wrong – with our body, with our environment, with our relationships.
So if you avoid negative emotions, you also might be avoiding the thing that needs your attention. Could deciding to focus on the negative emotions associated with failure lead to thoughts about self-improvement – and, with time, actual improvement?
We designed a series of experiments to test this question…
[Read the full article here: https://theconversation.com/the-best-way-to-deal-with-failure-84418]