If someone says “I really wanted to keep my bakery open but the books didn’t balance” it’s a failed business. If someone says “I had a goal to get a book published but I could never get it accepted” they’re a failed writer.

Yes, they could have just gotten bored or stressed or retired or life happened, but that’s not the same thing. When someone set out to do something with their best effort but couldn’t, they failed.

Failing to do something isn’t shameful and it doesn’t devalue you. It doesn’t even mean you’ll never be able to do it (go start a new business, write another book, have a happy second marriage). You’re only a failure if you let yourself be one, nobody can tell you to feel anything.

OOPs post isn’t healthy because it validates the fear of failure with mental gymnastics. Sometimes you fail and you just gotta work through it, you can’t put your all into something and shrug it off at the same time.

How about this: things are allowed to fail and that’s OK.

If you marry someone with the intent of staying together for the rest of your lives but you don’t, the marriage failed. It doesn’t have to define you.