One thing I’ve found pretty helpful in the context of my failures is to try to separate out (a) my intuitive emotional disappointment, regret, feelings of mourning, etc. (b) the question of what lessons, if any, I can take from my failure, now that I’ve seen the failure take place (c) the question of whether, ex ante, I should have known the endeavor was doomed, and perhaps something more meta about my decision-making procedure was off and ought to be corrected.
I think all these things are valid and good to process, but I used to conflate them a lot more, which was especially confusing in the context of risky bets I knew before I started had a substantial chance of failure.
I also noticed that I sometimes used to flinch away from the question of whether someone else predicted the failure (or seems like they would have), especially when I was feeling sad and vulnerable because of a recent failure. Now I try to do a careful manual scan for anyone that was especially foresightful/outpredicted me in a way that seemed like the product of skill rather than chance, and reflect on that until my emotions shift more towards admiration for their skill and understanding, and curiosity/a desire to understand what they saw that I missed. I try to get in a mood where I feel almost greedy for their models, and feel a deep visceral desire to hear where they’re coming from (which reminds me a bit of this talk). I envision how I will be more competent and able to achieve more for the world if I take the best parts of their model and integrate it into my own
I like this question :)
One thing I’ve found pretty helpful in the context of my failures is to try to separate out (a) my intuitive emotional disappointment, regret, feelings of mourning, etc. (b) the question of what lessons, if any, I can take from my failure, now that I’ve seen the failure take place (c) the question of whether, ex ante, I should have known the endeavor was doomed, and perhaps something more meta about my decision-making procedure was off and ought to be corrected.
I think all these things are valid and good to process, but I used to conflate them a lot more, which was especially confusing in the context of risky bets I knew before I started had a substantial chance of failure.
I also noticed that I sometimes used to flinch away from the question of whether someone else predicted the failure (or seems like they would have), especially when I was feeling sad and vulnerable because of a recent failure. Now I try to do a careful manual scan for anyone that was especially foresightful/outpredicted me in a way that seemed like the product of skill rather than chance, and reflect on that until my emotions shift more towards admiration for their skill and understanding, and curiosity/a desire to understand what they saw that I missed. I try to get in a mood where I feel almost greedy for their models, and feel a deep visceral desire to hear where they’re coming from (which reminds me a bit of this talk). I envision how I will be more competent and able to achieve more for the world if I take the best parts of their model and integrate it into my own