Why You Must Fail Forward—and Learn to Enjoy It

What unsuccessful attempts can teach you about yourself and what deserves another try.

Failure can feel personal, especially when you really care about what you’re trying to do.

You may have spent time thinking about the idea, preparing for it, and imagining what could happen if everything worked out. You may have even told other people what you were working toward—which can make it feel even more uncomfortable when you have to explain that it didn’t happen the way you hoped.

Now, you are not only disappointed about the outcome. You may also be questioning what the outcome says about you.

🤔Does this mean you’re not ready? 

🤔Does it mean you are not as capable as you thought? 

🤔Does it mean you should stop trying?

Those questions can make it difficult to look at failure clearly because you are no longer simply examining what happened. You are using what happened to examine your worth, your ability, and if you have permission to keep going.

I understand why you might do that…but an unsuccessful attempt does not have enough information to tell the whole truth about you.

• It can tell you that something did not work.

• It may tell you that you need more preparation, a different approach, additional support, or more time. 

• It may even help you recognize that you no longer want what you once thought you did.

However, it cannot decide that you are incapable of learning, growing, or trying again.

That part is completely up to you.

Failure may be telling you more than what went wrong

When you reflect on an unsuccessful attempt, you may expect to discover another thing that is wrong with you.

You may think the experience is going to confirm that you are too inconsistent, too inexperienced, or simply not good enough to do what you hoped to do.

That is one of the reasons people sometimes avoid looking closely at what happened. They already feel disappointed and they don’t want reflection to become another opportunity to make themselves feel worse.

However, what if looking at the experience could help you understand yourself better?

Yes, an unsuccessful attempt may hurt a bit but if given permission to reflect on the details, it may also help you recognize what you really care about.

Think about it.

🤔What could you have done differently?

🤔What would happen if you gave yourself more time?

🤔Is there another way to approach this?

🤔What do you need to learn before trying again?

Taking time to reflect on an unfavorable moment may help you recognize that the work matters to you—you may just need to refine your preparation and approach.

• Perhaps you learned that you need more structure than you gave yourself.

• Perhaps you do better when you have someone to talk through an idea with. 

• Perhaps you need enough privacy to explore an idea before inviting other people’s opinions into it.

In your reflection, you may discover that you rushed because you were excited, hesitated because you were afraid, or spent so much time thinking about how the work would be received that you didn’t give yourself permission to enjoy creating it.

These are not criticisms.

They are pieces of information that can help you approach the next attempt with a better understanding of yourself and what is needed to improve future outcomes.

So take a moment to ask yourself:

✍🏽What did this experience help me recognize about what I care about?

✍🏽What did it teach me about how I work?

✍🏽What might I need if I decide to try again?

You do not have to be grateful that something failed in order to appreciate what you now understand because you tried.

Do not let an unsuccessful attempt become how you define yourself

There is a difference between saying, “This approach did not work,” and deciding, “I cannot do this.”

There is a difference between recognizing that you were not prepared and convincing yourself that you are incapable.

Yet, when failure feels personal, those differences can be difficult to recognize.

You may begin using language that makes the experience sound more final than it is.

“I always mess things up.”

“I am never going to get this right.”

“I should have known I couldn’t do it.”

Have you ever spoken to yourself that way after something did not go as planned?

The disappointment may be real, but those statements don’t give you much room to understand what actually happened. They take one experience and use it to make a sweeping conclusion about who you are.

Be more specific.

✍🏽Did you fail to prepare for something that required more attention?

✍🏽Did you need information you did not have?

✍🏽Did you ignore a concern because you wanted the opportunity to work?

✍🏽Did you do everything you reasonably could and still experience an outcome you could not control?

Those are very different situations, and each one requires something different from you.

• Perhaps you need to take responsibility. 

• Perhaps you need to practice. 

• Perhaps you need to apologize, ask for help, or accept that not every outcome will be yours to determine.

You can be honest about what you did poorly without deciding that you are a poor excuse of a person.

It is okay to notice that you were unprepared. That does not mean you cannot become prepared.

It is okay to recognize that you made a bad decision. That does not mean you are incapable of making a better one.

It is okay to admit that you wanted something to work so badly that you ignored what you needed to consider. That does not mean you cannot slow down and listen to yourself differently the next time.

Growth requires you to see yourself clearly. That includes recognizing where you need to improve, but it also includes being fair about what the experience does and does not say about you.

You are someone who tried something.

Now, you are someone who knows more than you did before you tried.

Give yourself the opportunity to decide what you will do with that understanding.

Give yourself room to become someone who experiments

A lot of us want to know that something is going to work before we give ourselves fully to trying it.

We want reassurance that the idea is good, that people will respond well, and that the time we invest will eventually give us something we can point to and feel proud of.

I understand that.

Time matters. Money matters. Your energy matters. Depending on what you are attempting, there may be real consequences that deserve thoughtful consideration.

Still, not everything can be completely understood before you begin.

Some things require experimentation.

• You may need to try an approach before you know whether it fits you. 

• You may need to make something that is not very good yet so you can see what needs to improve. 

• You may need to share an idea, receive feedback, and discover that the version you started with is not the version you want to continue developing.

That can feel uncomfortable when you have connected being good at something with whether you have permission to do it.

Experimentation is not only about producing a successful result. It also gives you an opportunity to learn what feels natural to you, what keeps your attention, and what you would like to understand more deeply.

This is where learning to enjoy failure becomes important.

Now, I am not telling you to enjoy losing money, feeling embarrassed, disappointing someone, or experiencing consequences that could have been avoided.

I am asking you to consider whether you can learn to enjoy the freedom of trying.

🤔Can you appreciate having an idea and giving yourself permission to explore it?

🤔Can you allow yourself to be a beginner without expecting your beginning to look like someone else’s developed work?

🤔Can you make adjustments without treating every change as evidence that the original idea was foolish?

When you experiment, you give yourself a chance to meet parts of yourself that success alone may not introduce.

You learn how you respond when something requires patience.

You notice what you continue returning to when no one is applauding.

You discover whether you enjoy the actual work or only the attention you imagined receiving from it.

You also begin recognizing whether you are willing to care for an idea while it is still becoming.

Those discoveries matter because there will be days when you do not feel inspired. There may be seasons when the work requires more time than you have available or more effort than you originally expected.

If the only thing keeping you connected to it is the possibility of quick success, it may become easy to walk away when that success does not arrive.

When the work allows you to express something true about who you are and what you care about, you may find a reason to continue—even if continuing means slowing down, learning more, or trying again differently.

✍🏽What do you enjoy doing even while you are still learning?

✍🏽What continues drawing your attention after the excitement fades?

✍🏽What would you still want to explore if you did not have to impress anyone with the result?

Allow yourself to be curious about your answers. Allow yourself to remain true to what you discover.

Carry the information—not the criticism—into your next attempt

At some point, what happened has to give you something more than another reason to question yourself.

If you are willing to look at the experience honestly, it may help you recognize what you need to do differently the next time you try.

Begin with what did not work.

Be specific.

Instead of saying, “The whole thing was a disaster,” identify the part that created the greatest challenge. 

• Perhaps the idea was not fully developed. 

• Perhaps you underestimated what it would cost, did not communicate clearly, or expected yourself to know how to do something you had never done before.

Then consider what you understand now.

✍🏽What would you prepare for differently?

✍🏽What question would you ask sooner?

✍🏽What support would you seek?

✍🏽What expectation would you release?

You may also need to consider whether trying again is the wisest decision.

Failing forward does not mean forcing yourself to continue everything. 

Sometimes, what you learn helps you recognize that an opportunity: 

• is not aligned with what you want, 

• that the cost is greater than you are willing to carry, or 

• that another direction deserves your attention.

However, I hope you notice—that is still movement.

The important thing is that your next decision comes from understanding—not merely from the embarrassment of having failed.

Let Your Faith Guide You

If you are uncertain, bring that uncertainty into your relationship with God.

You can be honest about your disappointment. You can ask for wisdom about what needs to be developed, what needs to be approached differently, and what may need to be released.

Spending time with God may not give you every answer immediately, but it can help you slow down long enough to stop allowing fear, pride, or other people’s opinions to make the decision for you.

The best way to begin may look like choosing one next step that reflects what you know now.

• Maybe you ask someone you trust for feedback.

• Maybe you practice privately before presenting the idea publicly again.

• Maybe you give the idea more time instead of demanding that it prove its value immediately.

• Maybe you decide to try something different because the experience helped you recognize what you actually want.

Or maybe, despite how things turned out, you realize that you still care enough to try again.

That matters.

If you take a moment to think about someone’s story who has inspired you, you will notice that they too experienced failures—they just chose to see them as rough drafts instead of stop signs. 

You can too. 

Learn to enjoy becoming

Failure may still be disappointing even when you learn something from it.

• You may wish the experience had gone differently. 

• You may need time to recover from what it cost, make something right, or rebuild the confidence to begin again.

Give yourself that time.

Yet, while you are caring for what happened, do not overlook what you are learning about yourself.

✨You are learning what matters to you.

✨You are learning how you work best.

✨You are recognizing where you need more preparation, where you need support, and where you may need to trust yourself enough to approach something differently.

✨You are also learning that an unsuccessful attempt does not remove your ability to imagine, decide, create, or try again.

This is what it can mean to enjoy failing forward.

You are not celebrating the pain of disappointment.

You are appreciating the opportunity to become more honest, more prepared, and more aware of who you are as you continue moving through your life.

So, before you allow an unsuccessful attempt to convince you that you should stop, ask yourself:

✍🏽What would I do differently if I treated this experience as information instead of evidence against me?

You may not be ready to try again today.

That is okay.

For now, allow the answer to help you see that there may still be more available to you than the disappointment has allowed you to recognize.

Go Deeper

Failure can help you recognize what matters to you but knowing what matters is only a small part of learning how to create.

You may still have ideas you care about yet find yourself questioning them, judging them too early, or struggling to make room for them in your life.

Inside The Gym for the Mind, our members-only article, “How to Tap into Your Creative Flow and Thrive,” continues the conversation by exploring how your relationship with God and a growing knowledge of yourself can influence the way you create, experiment, and care for what deserves your attention.

Join The Gym for the Mind today to access this reflection.

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Hi, I’m Dr. Amirah B. Abdullah,

I write to make room for the thoughts, feelings, and questions we may carry quietly, but still need space to understand. Through faith, honest reflection, and practical insight, my hope is to help you recognize more of who you are, what matters to you, and how you can show up for yourself as you journey through life.

Here, we give ourselves permission to feel while also considering what we can learn, how we can grow, and what we may need to do differently. I want these words to meet you with care and encourage you to participate in your own becoming.

Thank you for spending a little time here with me. May you leave feeling understood, encouraged, and ready to live out what you have learned.