Book Summary: How To Fail
Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail looks at the misunderstood upside to failure. Even though it hurts and often feels terrible there are alot of positives to come from our failures, lessons to learn as well. Find out why failure is our greatest teacher.
Related Book Summaries to How To Fail:
Awaken The Giant Within – Tony Robbins
The Power Of Less – Leo Babauta
How To Fail Book Summary Notes:
Failing To Fit In
Growing up can be hard enough without the social anguish that comes from being the odd one out. What if not fitting in could actually be a positive though?
By not fitting in immediately we are forced to learn some tough lessons. Maybe our social skills need work. Maybe there is some other glaringly obvious trait to everyone else that we need to either work on or fix. It’s tough to be singled out especially if things aren’t even your fault. But the lessons we can learn here can huge ramifications later in life. It’s all a matter of perspective.
Failing Tests
What separates a pass and a fail on an exam? Sometimes it’s how much you studied or how hard you worked for the result. Unfortunately sometimes it all comes down to how the examiner feels on that particular day.
The author gives a brilliant example of failing her first driving test only to pass the second. The only difference in performance was a small mistake.
Learning from these events and realizing that it’s not always 100% due to effort, but that sometimes plain old chance plays a large role can be a powerful lesson.
Relationships and Failure
Whats the difference between an expert and a novice? A whole lot of repitition. This doesn’t just apply to learned skills though. Even things like relationships can be improved through repetition.
Very, very few people end up with the first partner they date. Most of us require finding out the hard way what we like or want in a relationship and that’s ok. Each time we sadly split or break up we should be that much closer to narrowing down the type of relationship, and partner, that we are looking for. Theres just as much to be learned through the heartbreak as there is in the joy of a good relationship.
