Failing Enough

Failing — and failing enough — is one of the most important things we can do. Yet for the longest time, I treated it like something to hide. I didn’t want anyone to see the cracks, the wrong turns, the moments I fell flat.

Most of us don’t. We curate the parts of ourselves that look good, the chapters where the story worked out. We post the wins, not the losses. And when we do share the losses, it’s often because we can’t hide them anymore — or because we’ve found a crowd that makes it safe. Suddenly, failure feels lighter when it’s shared. We reframe it: It’s not really failure if we all went through it, right? We pin it on our chest like a badge, convincing ourselves it’s a mark of honor.

But I’ve learned that a lot of this is smoke and mirrors. We’re not fighting the world’s opinion half as much as we’re fighting our own. The world… honestly doesn’t care.

The truth is, if you want to live authentically, you have to fail — not once, but repeatedly. Deeply. Uncomfortably. That’s the only way you become someone who’s worth the thing you’re chasing. And yes, it will look different for everyone.

We only make failure heavy when we give it power it doesn’t deserve — when we shrink from it, fear it, or let it define us. Take away that negative power, and failure stops being the enemy. It becomes proof you were brave enough to try.

Because the people who’ve never failed enough?

They’ve never lived enough.