One of the email lists I subscribe to is from Growthink (www.growthink.com) and today I received an email with the subject line, “I missed more than 9,000 shots.” The subject line peaked my curiosity and the email was all about using times in which failure can be used as a motivator to achieve. Growthink is a company that works with entrepreneurs and the article stated that “failures are often the best motivators for educators and entrepreneurs.”
The email gave a few examples, one of them being:
'I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot... and missed. And I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why... I succeed.'
This quote is from Michael Jordan, who as the article states is “arguably the greatest basketball player of all time.” The article goes on to talk about attribution theory, which describes how an individual's explanation, justification, and excuses about oneself or others influence one’s motivation (I’ll explore Attribution Theory in another post). Failure is important if one can learn from it. Taking time to think about mistakes and lessons learned is vital to being able to move forward.
I have started keeping a journal whenever I finish a project. The template in that journal asks the following questions, 1. What did I like/learn from the experience? 2. What didn’t I like about the experience? 3. What did I learn/what can I improve going forward?
These questions can be modified or changed based on what I have experienced, but I think that by keeping this journal I’ll be able to track lessons learned, but also remind myself of successes along the way, which will keep me motivated.
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