Failure No Longer Works

We need a new word to give us direction

Today my oldest child pointed out that I need a different word for failing, because the way I was using it didn’t make sense. For me the word failure is deeply rooted in my background as a teacher. I feel like the word failure should not prevent people from seeing its absolute necessity to learning. In fact, one of the most difficult parts about working with people to apply Metacognitive Problem Solving in their lives is the fear, stigma and shame many have around admitting and identifying failures and mistakes. People need to see their failures, not just to avoid them, but to build on them, grow beyond them and even inspire them toward figuring out what happened and trying again. A practice I have come to call error correction, and I believe is critical to learning.

So I am in the market for a word. A simple word that means yes, something did not happen the way you predicted, but went this other direction, and that is a good thing because now you have the opportunity to know an impediment to doing that thing you failed to do flawlessly.

In many societies most societies, but especially the U.S., the words failure and mistake carry a heavy burden. Without understanding of how learning works, it is hard not to take such events as symbols of personal inadequacy or incompetence. Like a cancer, these ideas can metastasize into beliefs that not only limit you as a student, but also limit you as a teacher or even a boss because this framing discourages risk-taking, stifles creativity, and undermines the very process of development we may be trying to inspire in another.

As a teacher, you can say something like, “You didn’t fail, you made a mistake and we can learn from our mistakes.” I always thought this sounded good, but it doesn’t prevent the student from feeling the implicit burden that these words carry. But what if we could change the narrative, and thus change a widespread mindset through language itself?

There really is no English word for a welcomed mistake. Most of the time we just create an oxymoron like “Lucky Mistake” or “Happy Accident”. The closest word I could think of, and it is not really a word but the saying a “Blessing in disguise,” which makes it seem more like we are dealing with an act of God and not a natural part of the learning process.

There is a Latin phrase that had a similar religious connotation: "felix culpa", which I think is a strong contender. It literally means "happy fault", and is used to describe an apparent error or disaster with ultimately positive consequences. Other languages have similar phrases, like there is the Polish phrase "Jakoś to będzie", meaning "things will work out in the end", and is often used to encourage embracing big dreams or stepping outside one's comfort zone, which is exactly what I am suggesting.

Many Eastern philosophies embrace failure as part of a cyclical learning process, and I love this conceptualization. For example, in Japanese culture, the concept of kaizen emphasizes continuous improvement, where small failures are stepping stones to mastery. Because of this, Japanese culture, particularly in education, emphasizes mistakes as a natural and even valuable part of the learning process. Students are often encouraged to try solving problems in front of the class, and even if they make mistakes, they are not shamed. This is because mistakes are seen as indicators of what still needs to be learned rather than failures. This is closer to the idea I am thinking because, more than a description it is a word that has real cultural impact.

In Japan this cultural impact is further expressed in the concept of poka-yoke (mistake-proofing). Poka-yoke is a proactive approach to manufacturing where learning from past mistakes is considered central to improving the process of error prevention.

Germany has a similar concept of Fehlerkultur (error culture), where the emphasis is on creating environments where errors are not feared or punished, but rather seen as valuable opportunities for improvement. These ideas are particularly on display in organizations in high-risk sectors, such as aviation, which actively demand open and non-punitive handling of errors to foster learning and prevent future occurrences.

Finland actually has a national holiday to celebrate mistakes called Epäonnistumisen päivä, their National Day for Failure. This ability to celebrate mistakes I think really demonstrates what I am thinking here, and is reflected in the fact that Finland officially has the worlds best educational institutions.

Some of the best expressions of this idea come from indigenous cultures. For example, the Māori culture of New Zealand use the phrase Nau mai te hapa. More than just a simple word, it represents a state of welcoming errors as part of the journey of life, not as detours from it. Many indigenous cultures, like the Māori, take the idea of failure and stand it on its head, seeing it as a "beautiful gift and honour", rather than a burden. Rather than a negative, it is a challenge that builds the resilience you grow from.

So, if you can think of a better word for failure I would love to here it!

Let me know in the comments.