Jun 06, 2021 | by Budi Tanrim
Falling seventeen times in an hour
Can you imagine falling 17 times in an hour when walking?
Probably that’s quite embarrassing. But we actually did—as infants.
A study by Karen Adolph, an infant psychologist, showed how infants continually fail when they learn to walk. It takes around 2.6 million steps to be somewhat proficient at walking, and throughout this process, infants toppled over a lot—an average of seventeen times an hour.
Failing was an essential part of learning. Fortunately, unlike adults, they don’t get any negative feedback for their errors. Infants are okay to try what they’re not good at—falling in their learning process to walk, mumbling when they first talk, and so on.
Now we live in a society that makes us uncomfortable to be bad at something. We only want to show the best part of ourselves—partly due to social media.
Should we re-learn how to be comfortable to be bad at something?
When you feel reluctant to try something new, perhaps you will miss an opportunity to learn.
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