In a world where achievements are posted for us to see daily, in reality, failures are a huge part of success. Did you know that about 90% of newly developed drugs fail during the trial stage? Just like scientists who receive new data from experiments, failure provides us with new and valuable information. The experience we receive from our mistakes, provides us with new insight, makes us more resilient and allows for new discovery. New discoveries like today's most famous (and my favorite) snack, the chocolate chip cookie. While experimenting with a new recipe, Ruth Wakefield was able to create a treat that would end up in homes all over the world.

Without failure, most achievements would be impossible to accomplish. Remember when you first learned how to ride a bike? To understand what you were doing you had to get on the bike and start to ride; and that's the point. That's where the learning takes place, in the doing. If you fell (and most of us did plenty of times) Amy C. Edmondson would call that an intelligent failure. A Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, Amy encourages us to have more intelligent failures. In her book “The Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well, she expresses that the “discovery of what doesn’t work, is sometimes just as valuable as what does.”

However, in today’s social media era, “perfectionism” has led to an increase in depression and burnout. A recent study by the American Psychological Association (APA) showed that 41% of Teens with the highest social media use, rated their mental health as poor or very poor. Naturally we compare ourselves to one another, but in no time like before are other people’s successes being showcased. Due to our ability to shape our posts and platforms to our exact liking, social media has created an unrealistic picture of success. We begin to believe that success is unblemished and aim for perfectionshim. Due to wanting to “get it perfect” we don’t even begin. We continue to “kick the can down the road” and further delay our achievements, and this is exactly what led me to write this blog.

As a therapist, I have found that this conversation has been circling over and over with my patients. As we work together on their goals, I found that many of them are frozen by anxiety. Despite brilliant ideas and strategic planning, they just can’t get started because well; they don't know the end result. They want to get it so right, that they are afraid to get it wrong. This idea of getting it perfect only leads to them not trying at all, and missing out on the adventure of learning. One day during a session with a patient, it just came out. “You know…

During college I worked as a swim instructor for the YMCA, teaching kids and adults how to swim. As I sat there, trying to motivate my patient on her idea to begin a project, I responded about my experience as a swim instructor. Everyone I worked with had to get in the water to learn; and so must we. You have to dive in. Unknowns are a part of the journey. We didn’t know if we were going to fall off the bike or not, but we were willing to find out. You learn on the way.

With that being said, we have to understand that not all mistakes are created equal and not all mistakes are good mistakes. As In The Right Kind of Wrong, Amy points out that the environment and the mistake itself is significant. For example, pilots practice in simulations. This makes the environment safe to learn, rather than practicing with live passengers and bringing down a whole plane. The context we are in matters. When studying what leads to most mistakes, results showed that arrogance, faulty assumptions and inattention are critical factors. When you think about it, this makes total sense as many of us are prone to be seduced by our egos. Once we believe we achieved something or mastered it, we begin to give it less attention; a matter which seems to take place in many relationships.

In all, learning from our mistakes is still a fundamental part of our accomplishments. However, today's information age has led us to believe that success means getting everything right. This idea of perfection only prevents our ability to explore and learn. A healthier approach as discussed in Amy’s book is to focus on your own progress. Rather than focusing on others or the end goal itself, this allows us to review our own growth and detect any errors we can fix moving forward. Doing this we get to celebrate our small strides, which provide us with more energy to keep going. But of course, in order to reach our destination, we have to dive in.

Depression has increased 60% over the last decade. Proceeds go towards Our Mission to tackle the rising health crisis amongst Teens & Adults.

The Handcuffs of Perfectionism