What power lies in not giving up?

Resilience. Learning from failure. Growth mindset. Not giving up.

There is much around on these subjects, and rightly so. Growth mindset is a very trendy topic in schools, where the emphasis is on embracing challenge, persistence and rewarding effort.

Key to all this for me is that it is OK to get it wrong.

This is a subject I have spoken about right since I started this blog, as it is so key for our character growth and emotional maturity.

How do you deal with failure?

This quote by Thomas Edison is quite a challenge – that our greatest weakness lies in giving up.

Is that true for you? That your greatest weakness is giving up? If I were to ask you to list your weaknesses, (cheery I know) how soon would that spring to mind?

What do we gain by giving up?

Seems an odd question I know.

Avoidance of fear. If we give up, then we don’t risk not succeeding at all, especially if we can come up with a good excuse. We avoid being exposed as frauds, failures, incompetents.

Avoiding asking for help, and thereby admitting that we cannot do this ourselves.

Not having to face the people who asked us to achieve whatever it is with further failure and seek an alternative or more time. We can simply walk away and avoid that altogether.

Being able to get on with something else. Because after all, this repeatedly trying again is turning out to be time consuming and hard work. Harrumpf.

Letting ourselves off the hook of our own expectations. This is a big one for me. Deeply scripted values mean that I tend to take a “if I say I am going to do it then I will do it” approach. Sometimes the temptation to give up is associated with then being able to stick my head back in the sand and pretend the whole thing never happened.

But of course, none of these outcomes are what we aspire to. Nor are they what we want to be modelling to the younger generations.

The question of course really needs to be

What do we gain by NOT giving up.

James Dyson famously tried to invent the bag-less vacuum cleaner more than 5000 times before he succeeded. He did not give up, despite the huge effort, frustration and potential humiliation of that.

He got it wrong repeatedly, and yet was passionate enough about achieving his goal that he persisted and tried again until – eventually – he got it right.

I mentioned last week that we are back in exam season. For examees close to us, not giving up is indeed pertinent and current. Learning quotes, language tenses, formulae. Practicing, rehearsing, revising, reviewing.

And doing it again.

And again.

And again.

Despite boredom, frustration, the temptation to be outside in the sun.

Because the outcome is important and it matters.

I am heartened that there has been input at school on growth mindset, and when it comes to exams, the importance of acknowledging and rewarding effort as much as achievement. There is a tricky line to walk between the importance of exam success – because of doors that are then opened to desired courses – and one’s worth and identity not being tied up one’s achievements.

Failure is inevitable. But learning not to give up is about recognising that even when we fail, that is not the end of the story. Often it is just the start if we are able to look at what went wrong, be open to positive external influences, try new approaches and pick ourselves up despite our battered and bruised noses and egos. In our house, Maths is a case in point, and a great example of failure being turned into success through willingness to not give up.

Where are you tempted to give up?

What situation might you be facing where you think:

I’ve had it, this is too hard, I’ve tried too often and I ain’t doing this any more.”

Sometimes, in some circumstances, that might be the right thing to do.

But more often than not, what we learn by not giving up bears much fruit for our futures.

We learn not to be derailed by failure into a black pit of negative belief – just because we have failed at something does not mean we ourselves are failures.

We learn to balance our negative emotions and take a more objective view, knowing that our worth is not tied up in our achievements but in who we are.

Fruits like perseverance, persistence, resilience, endurance, consistency are all of great worth when we come to the next challenging thing we face.

I know that as I have been musing here on what I want to model to my own Nearest-and-dearest, one thing is for them to see me be honest about my failures but to see me regroup, learn and try again.

Because I do not want to be defined by my failures or by giving up. I want to be defined by a willingness to try again and always be open to learn, change and grow.

What about you – what have you learned recently from not giving up on something? Or perhaps someone? And how are you choosing to pass that life skill on to others close to you?