If someone frequently messes up a particular task, it can be frustrating for everyone. If they mess it up not as badly one day, that’s a huge accomplishment! The steps toward true mastery don’t just go from failure to minor success to major success. There are usually a dozen or more incrementally less worse failures along the way. And we should praise that!
If you, especially as a teacher or guide, express the same disapproval toward the not-as-bad failure, you’re discouraging the very process that will lead someone out of that swamp. Losing a game by three points is way better than losing a game by ten points, even if you still lost. Not everything has to be indexed against a win. Just making less of a mess is wonderful.
The Opportunity Machine 