When was the last time you experienced a win? Maybe you hit all the green lights on your way to work. Or you finally got that promotion you had been working so hard for. How deeply did you feel these experiences? Furthermore, what did you learn?
Now, when was the last time you failed? My guess is that you can name the specific incident with great detail and even feel some of the emotion from what occurred.
While it can be true that winning reinforces more winning and helps encourage growth, some research indicates that failure strengthens learning, which can also foster incredible growth. When we experience failure, the neurons in our brain fire. And as we repeat a newly learned behavior, the wiring we have created strengthens. Thus, we are getting better at that thing we initially failed at. Neurons that fire together wire together. And amazingly, our brains consist of millions of neurons that help us learn.
Case in point, many of the teens I work with remember the answers they got wrong on a test way more than the ones they got right. Why is this? If we take a deeper look at the brain, we find that the system most stimulated by failure is our prefrontal cortex. When a “failure” occurs, our brains take notice in an attempt to keep us safe from a threat. In this case, the threat is failure, and in order to survive, our brains take note and open up pathways of new learning. This process is prime time for personal growth and explains why those same students want to search for the correct answer and will remember it longer.
One of the biggest benefits of therapy is that your therapist can help you lean into your failures, take a look at them from a new perspective, and allow for new learning to occur. Your therapist can also help you practice new ways of coping, which strengthen the new pathways you are forming. Many clients come to therapy tired of repeating the same patterns and feeling stuck in their ways. Understanding the brain and its neuroplasticity or ability to change and adapt due to experience (yes, even failure) helps us see our potential for continual learning, personal growth, and change. And it is, as Louis Cozolino writes, Why Therapy Works.
You can learn about neuroplasticity, the power of learning through failure, and so much more about why therapy works by reading Cozolino’s book, ‘Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains.’
References:
- Louis Cozolino wrote Why Therapy Works: Using Our Minds to Change Our Brains (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology), published in 2015 by W. W. Norton and Company for a series of 78 books on neurobiology.
