> Allowing ourselves to fail (and learn and have fun) is a powerful thing.
I agree completely, and it changed my life to realize this as an adult. I try to teach my kids that it's OK to enter practice mode when they do things that are hard (video games, drawing, homework) and that it's OK to fail as long as they learn or at least have fun.
For me it was the video games Dark Souls 3 and Bloodborne that taught me to fail and press on. I had a fixed mindset before, and would mostly do things that came easy to me. In DS3 the bosses, and even regular enemies, can kill you with a couple of blows, but if you figure out their movesets you can easily counter them.
The first time you meet a new boss you have to be prepared to die a couple of times (or 10 or 50) as you learn their attacks and how they're telegraphed, before you can defeat them. A common suggestion is to not at first even try to attack a difficult boss, but to just dodge and study their moves before they inevitable defeat you. Then you apply that knowledge the next time you try.
I've come to the point where I feel cheated if I beat a boss at the first attempt, because you don't get to experience the full range of the boss and you don't get the same high as when you finally beat them.
DS3 and Bloodborne has made me better at video games in general, and I think better at being persistent outside of games.
Another thing is watching people practice speedruns of video games. They fail over, and over, over again, and I greatly admire the players that can just restart that section of the game and practice over and over. I hate speedrunners that rage at the game, but absolutely love the calm ones that just keep trying until they can reliably beat a difficult stage.