"I can't do it" - frightened of failure.

What is the connection between these three things?


1. Rory McIlroy from Northern Ireland winning his first major golf tournament at the age of 22.


2. A group of middle aged people not comfortable with technology.


3. My granddaughter, aged fifteen months, trying to walk.


The connection is learning to fail. Learning to try again. Learning that success only comes through failure.


1. Rory McIlroy's story will become the stuff of legend. A young man, who under two years of age, loved his plastic golf clubs. Encouraged...and that word is crucial...by his parents, he played and practised for days, weeks, months and years. Two months ago he was leading the pack at the US Masters Tournament. There was every indication that he would win on the last day. Except that he didn't. The voice of doubt entered his consciousness and he lost the lead in a dramatic, if not humiliating fashion. He failed in front of millions of people all over the world.


Two months later, he found himself in a similar position in the US Open Championship. Leading the pack from day one and expected to win on the last day. This time the spectators and pundits had doubts. Did he fail again? No he didn't. It was a magnificent win.


To pick yourself up from a humiliating disaster and face the public again takes a high degree of emotional maturity. Rory doesn't throw tantrums on the course.


Another young man of 22, had an job interview at a place he desperately wanted to work. It went very badly and he didn't get the job. Six weeks later, he tried again. He got the job...and is still there, promoted many times, eighteen years later.


2. Last week I was with a group of middle aged to elderly people, all belonging to a voluntary organisation. People in the professions, people who are extremely competent, people able to think independently and get things done. Some of these people don't have to use computers in their daily lives.  They feel that social networking is too intrusive. They quietly grumble about the necessity for learning new stuff at their age. 


There is a divide beginning to show in voluntary organisations. There are people who are up to date with modern technology and want to carry on learning until the day they die. Then there are those people who are not. Whether people like it or not, for communication and marketing purposes, it is vital.


My favourite quote on embracing new technology comes from the Postmaster General in 1902: "The telephone is a wonderful invention. Every town should have one."


It's not that the non users can't learn, it's that many are not inclined to try. They are frightened of failing and feeling stupid. Just like they did a long time ago. The language doesn't help. When I was first introduced to computers twenty years ago, all I heard about them, was 'crashing' and stuff 'getting lost'. Not helpful for confidence building.


3. On my last visit to see my granddaughter and her big brother, it was a delight to see her walking...or rather falling over a great deal. Toddle, toddle, fall, get up again, toddle, toddle, fall, get up again. To be repeated hundreds of times in a day. We've nearly all done it. She's also learning to feed herself. The spoon goes into her mouth with food...sometimes. We've nearly all done that too.


We spend the first few months and years in our lives trying over and over again and never giving up if we fail. Then we stop trying. Why?  Much of the time it's because we are frightened of failing. Failing means that we're stupid. 


When does that mental switch happen? Why does it happen?


During the early 1980s I ran an unusual toddler group. It was only for two years olds and without their parents. The children came for ninety minutes and they and their parents loved it. I had two helpers and around twenty toddlers.  It is probably many people's idea of a nightmare, but it worked and worked well. The Social Services with their 1980s liberal ways, wanted to shut it down, but couldn't. The reasons why it worked will feature when I write about boundary setting.  I was immersed in two year old behaviour, which is why I became intrigued when I saw evidence of similar behaviour in adults with emotional health problems.


I have a great affection for two year olds. Their minds are like blotting paper and they practice motor, language and social skills every day.  There is usually masses of encouragement around, as they learn about eating, dressing, drawing, playing with toys, chatting, using a potty, drinking from a tumbler and so on. Every learnt skill means hundreds of failed attempts.


But the child may start to receive different messages. A failed attempt draws criticism, sometimes anger, sometimes withdrawal of attention and love. They can start to believe that failure is a bad thing. They receive the message that they are stupid.


The child goes to school. There are lessons. Some they like and are good at, some they don't like and find the concepts difficult. Natural talents begin to show, but not all are those that are fully understood in the classroom. The child learns to feel stupid. They are told they are stupid. They are punished because they are stupid. Inside they may well start to feel angry and confused, because they know that they are not as stupid as the evidence seems to suggest. 


With some children, the incidents can be traumatising, even ones that an adult would dismiss as being insignificant. The effects can last a lifetime. A life changing choice I made at 17, was solely based on experiences I had at 2 and 3 years of age.  


There is also a risk that a child who grows up believing that they aren't any good, can attract people who are bullies. Whether at work, socially or domestically.  Some children can develop perfectionist tendencies, which become self-limiting. Others can spend a lifetime chasing after the missing feelings of achievement from their childhood.


It doesn't have to be like that. They can learn to change their reactions from childish ones from the past, to adult ones in the present. The 22 year old man mentioned earlier, experienced a plenty of negative feedback through his schooldays, but it was the man who went for that second interview, not the boy.


"Emotional arousal makes you stupid." Words heard at my first seminar, when re-training as a psychotherapist. At 48 years old, I did not want to hear that I could be thought stupid. I felt quite cross. Then it was explained.  It changed my life.


Simply put, the brain has a logical part and an emotional part. The higher the emotion felt, the less ability to think logically. Great when absorbed watching a movie, listening to music or reading a book. Who needs to think logically then? Not so useful when late at the railway station or airport, angry and trying to make sense of the departure board. The information might as well be written in Chinese for the sense it makes. How many of us have made illogical decisions, when emotionally aroused and 'in love' or just 'in lust'? 


In fact, stations and airports make very good places to observe people under stress and their resulting behaviour.


I watched a middle-aged couple approach check-in in an airport. They were guided to the self-service machine. They looked at it, slightly bewildered. I could see that the woman was willing to work through the directions patiently, but not the man. He moved the woman aside and the stress levels became visible. He punched away randomly at various buttons. He then swore at the machine and finally kicked it. The woman looked around, she was embarrassed.


I believe that what the man was feeling is not disimilar to those people who feel unable to get to grips with computers. They feel very uncomfortable with failing to grasp something the first time they have to do it. That feeling will be attached to a memory or memories that go back to original learning experiences. They become frightened of failing and of feeling stupid. Of being yelled at, ridiculed and humiliated. So they don't try. It's such a shame, because not 'getting it' the first few times of doing something new is perfectly normal.


In the first workshop I gave in Australia I asked for questions at the end. A man in his fifties put his hand up. "You've just made sense of my life," he said. With some surprise, I asked how? He told the audience that when he was at primary school, there was one teacher who used to stand behind him and say, "Collins, you are slow, but sure. Slow to learn and sure to fail." The man told the audience that every time he had looked for a job that he thought he'd like to apply for, he would just hear the teacher's words and not bother. He went on to say, that he was going to change and not listen to that teacher anymore. I hope he did.


There are too many talented adults, stuck in their lives, because they allow their own inner voice of self belief to be drowned out by an old voice, belonging to someone else. A voice well well past its sell by date, telling them that they are stupid and a failure.


Yet, what can give us a huge, natural, punching the air, 'high'?  What about a sense of achievement that comes when we've tackled something difficult and succeeded? An easy task doesn't provide the same thrill at all.


A useful reminder of failure leading to competence is the mobile phone or a computer. We get a new phone/computer.  Our brains are 'hard wired' to the old machine. The new phone/computer feels awkward. The keys may be in a different place.  The menu choices are different. We want to use it, but can become extremely frustrated learning the new way. There may be a strong tendancy to want to throw the whole damn, stupid thing away in its box.  But we persevere and within a very short space of time, the new phone/computer is 'hard wired' in our brain. It doesn't take long for repeated movements to embed themselves and become habit.


Anyone who has hired a car knows the fundamentals well enough to drive it, but how many us put the wipers on instead of indicating? We may repeat that action a few times before our hands automatically make the correct choice. Repetitive action will secure the neurological connections. That includes negative actions too.


My inability to programme the dvd recorder frustrates my husband. But I hardly ever have to do it. So he shows me, I do it and then don't need to do it for weeks, by which time my brain has forgotten what to do. I'm not stupid, it's just that the actions weren't repeated over and over. Anyway, thank goodness for Iplayer. I don't need to bother with the recorder anymore.


Rory McIlroy has practiced for years and will go on practicing. He will have successes and failures. He will learn from the failures and succeed again.


Some people in voluntary organisations will leave rather than learn.


My granddaughter will carry on failing, as she achieves small and large successes through life.


Just like her grandmother.


©RitaLeaman2011