As some prepare to make their New Year's resolutions, a book signed by a collective of authors suggests changing your perception of failure and success.
The book, co-edited by two University of Ottawa professors, Florian Grandena and Éric Mathieu, is entitled: “Failure and Vomiting: Reflections on Failure as a Way of Life and Philosophy.”
In the part he wrote, Mr. Grandena wants to bring a new perspective and promote a new approach to failure in all areas.
“For me, failure is something productive, in the sense that failure can allow us to rethink the place that traditional success can take in professional life,” he explained in an interview with LCN.
By taking a perspective on failure, we also see success differently, argues Florian Grandena. Very often we measure success using numbers or very tangible elements. The professor and author would like to deconstruct this approach.
“To think about failure is to destabilize success a little,” Mr. Grandena proclaims.
“Success is, first and foremost, the joy we get from achieving something. And for this success, failure is an absolutely necessary step. Without failure, there is no learning,” he adds.
Since Florian Grandena, like everyone else, has experienced several professional failures, he had to learn to look at failures differently in order to feel less oppressed.
“At a certain point I realized that what was bothering me was not so much a so-called negative phase of my career or a phase in which one learns something, but rather the fact of having internalized the expectations of an institution, ” he says.
According to the University of Ottawa professor, we often associate our own failures through the eyes of others, which can trigger anxiety.
Mr. Grandena does not hesitate to congratulate his students on their failures and mistakes because these are important in the academic process.
“I think it's very important to go through these negative phases because that's the only way you can really learn and grow as a person,” he says.
To watch the full interview, watch the video above.