“HOW DO I DO IT?” VS. “CAN I DO IT?”
“In contrast, a process orientation . . . asks ‘How do I do it?’ instead of ‘Can I do it?’ and this directs attention toward defining the steps that are necessary on the way. This orientation can be characterized in terms of the guiding principle that there are no failures, only ineffective solutions.”
— Ellen Langer from Mindfulness
Tal Ben-Shahar’s Choose the Life You Want (interestingly, Tal and Ellen were both professors at Harvard). Here’s what Tal has to say on the subject: “When we hear about extremely successful people, we mostly hear about their great accomplishments—not about the many mistakes they made and the failures they experienced along the way. In fact, most successful people throughout history are also those who have had the most failures. That is no coincidence. People who achieve great feats, no matter what field, understand that failure is not a stumbling block but a stepping-stone on the road to success. There is no success without risk and failure. We often fail to see this truth because the outcome is more visible than the process—we see the final success and not the many failures that led to it.
When I acknowledge that fulfilling my potential must involve some failure, I no longer run away from risks and challenges. The choice is a simple one: Learn to fail, or fail to learn.”
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