The only thing worse than making a mistake is keeping it bottled up inside. Learning from the mistakes of others could help you embark on the healing journey of sharing and working through a mistake of your own, with someone you trust.
For my sons, those experiences proved incredibly valuable. Both of them learned to value their athletic experiences not so much for the awards they won or accolades they received but for what participating in those events did for them on the inside. In comparing their childhood experiences to my long-distance running, I realized that many of my own fondest running memories did not come from the buckles or plaques I received but rather from the internal gratification I enjoyed in completing something really difficult.
In The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, Harvard philosopher Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that human flourishing rests on two distinct 'cornerstones of our humanness': connectedness and the longing to matter. Connectedness—what we often call belonging—is 'the feeling that there are particular others who are prepared to pay us special attention, whether we deserve it or not.' It is unconditional, relational, and necessary. But it is not sufficient.
While goals can create structure in your life, give you something to strive for, and even inspire you, reaching the goal itself is a result of what you do to get there. The actions you take are the process-how you're actually filling the time that is your life. Sometimes, if you're lucky, what you do is fulfilling; it brings out the best in you-your talents, interests, and skills.
If you ever felt your motivation drain away under a micromanaging boss, he gave you the language for what was happening to you. If you ever sensed that grades and gold stars were somehow diminishing the very learning they were supposed to enhance, he explained why. And in doing so, he helped liberate psychology from one of its most limiting assumptions. The Black Box of Behaviorism For much of the 20th century, the dominant paradigm in psychological research, behaviorism, treated humans as input-output machines.
