“A stumble may prevent a fall.”

I love the Wall Street Journal’s Magazine and Off Duty Saturday section. Basically the non-business sections. Really smart writing on fashion, food, design….The magazine has columnists who comment on one word. Gretchen Rubin, author of “Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives” talks about failure:

“Part of failing is figuring out how to fail. There’s a real tension, a paradox, in habit formation in that you have to hold two ideas in your head at the same time. On the one hand, failure is no big deal. And on the other hand, you really, really, really don’t want to fail, because when you’re trying to form a habit, the more you do it the easier it gets.”

I love her comment: “People who show self-compassion do a much better job of getting back on the horse. Instead of saying This is a catastrophic failure, say, This is a stumble. Now I’m going to learn from it.”