We’re taught that failure is the price of ambition, but psychologists studying explanatory style found that what happens after a setback depends partly on the story a person tells themselves about it: those who see failure as permanent and personal are more likely to become helpless, while those who treat it as temporary and specific are more likely to keep going.
Ambition has a standard story about failure. You take the hit, learn the lesson, and keep moving. It is clean, motivational, and not quite true. Some setbacks become information. Others become identity. The difference is not only the size of the loss. It is also the explanation a…