At school it’s ingrained from a young age to not fail. The mantra of “less mistakes gives you a better chance at getting into a good school then helps you find a high paying job”, teaches kids to live in constant fear of making mistakes.
I don’t know about you, but if you’re like me with an average IQ, I wouldn’t stand a reasonable chance in academia.
But one important area schools does not develop is your emotional intelligence. I’ve seen many book smart and intelligent people be so fearful of making a mistake, they don’t try to start anything. Because that’s what the schools and parents who were also trained at the same schools are teaching them.
People forget that in many of life’s earliest instances, they learned through trial and error. By making mistakes. They didn’t walk out of their mothers womb to give her a high five, no, they learned how to walk after falling many times till they got it right.
Growing up I was fortunate to have parents who encouraged me to try my hand in cooking, even if my cooking was terrible. They knew after many failed attempts, I would figure out what I was doing wrong and my meals would eventually become edible, then maybe even delicious.
Looking back, I am grateful for having the chance to learn at an early age, that failure was part of the process to achieve success.