In today's motivational literature, failure is often viewed as something to be celebrated. Inspirational speakers are fond of using the words of the novelist Samuel Beckett- "Fail again. Fail better." It seems that disappointments are an essential stepping stone to success, a turning point in our life story that will ultimately end in victory.
However, psychological researches find most of us struggle to handle failure constructively. In other words, we fail to "fail forward". We find ways to devalue the task at which we failed, and become less motivated to persevere and reach our goals. This phenomenon is known as the "sour-grape effect", which was discovered by Professor Hallgeir Sjastad.
Sjastad explains that "sour-grape effect" is a self-protective mechanism. "Most of us picture ourselves as competent people, so when external feedback suggests oppositely, it poses a serious threat to that self-image," he says. "The easiest way out is to deny or explain away the external signal, so we can reduce the inconsistency and preserve a positive sense of self. We do this even without noticing."
If you have one bad interview for your dream job, you might convince yourself that you don't really want it at all, and stop applying for similar positions. The same goes if you fail to impress at a sports trial, or if a publisher rejects the first submission of your manuscript. "We tend to explain away our shortcomings and convince ourselves our ‘Plan C' is actually our ‘Plan A'," Sjastad says.
It doesn't mean we should persevere in goals all the time. It can be healthy to change ambitions if the process is no longer making us happy. But the "sour-grape effect" may lead us to come to this decision prematurely, rather than hanging on a little and seeing whether we might learn and improve.
Failures are unavoidable. By learning to face the disappointment instead of devaluing its importance and pretending nothing happened, you may find it easier to achieve your goals.
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