Mistakephobia

I believe that our society’s “mistakephobia” is crippling, a problem that begins in most elementary schools, where we learn to learn what we are taught rather than to form our own goals and to figure out how to achieve them.

We are fed with facts and tested and those who make the fewest mistakes are considered to be the smart ones, so we learn that it is embarrassing to not know and to make mistakes.

Our education system spends virtually no time on how to learn from mistakes, yet this is critical to real learning. As a result, school typically doesn’t prepare young people for real life — unless their lives are spent following instructions and pleasing others.

In my opinion, that’s why so many students who succeed in school fail in life.

— Ray Dalio in Principles