On Failing While Trying

I had started preparing for JEE in eleventh grade. I had done pretty well in the tenth standard, exceeding even my own expectations. So when I came in eleventh, I expected myself to do similarly well. I was completely wrong. 

The thing was that by the end of the tenth standard, I had practised the questions so many times that I knew the answer many times before even reading the full question. Obviously, when the grade changed, I had to start from zero, learn new concepts, make mistakes, learn from them, absorb the concepts and then master them. But my ego and the image of invincibility and false genius I had made up in my mind did not let me make mistakes. It did not let me introspect and hence did not let me grow. I did rectify it a bit next year, but the lesson remained. 

I have seen this pattern repeat more times than I can count. Whenever a successful person is given a new domain, there is a high probability that he/she will fail. The failure has more to do with the ego than with anything else. The previous success has built an aura of invincibility around them. The internal dialogue is that they are better than the next person. They are unwilling to learn, exposing their vulnerability and making mistakes. More often than not they go back to what they were doing. 

But real growth happens by making mistakes and learning from them. One should be willing to fail miserably in practice and get better, rather than fail on the stage itself. It is a lesson which I took to the heart. While I tend to forget it from time to time ( expertise is its own coccoon) I remember the time I was 16 and get back to being open to make mistakes and learn from them.