Failing in the right direction

We grow up learning that failure is something to avoid. Something shameful. A red mark on the report card of life—but what if failure isn’t the opposite of success? What if the obstacle is the way?

The stories we admire are rarely clean. They’re messy, jagged, and full of detours and breakdowns. But we only hear the highlight reel, the breakthrough, the TED Talk, the moment the hero wins. What we don’t hear is the part where they doubted everything, lost money, burned bridges, and questioned their sanity.

That part? That’s where the real growth happens.

Failing in the right direction means you’re not just failing—you’re failing towards your goals. You’re learning, adjusting, recalibrating. You’re discovering what doesn’t work so you can get closer to what does—it’s not glamorous, it’s not Instagrammable, but it’s real, and it works.

Psychologists call it “error-based learning.” You try, you mess up, your brain rewires, and you try again. It’s how toddlers learn to walk, it’s how athletes shave milliseconds off their time, and it’s how entrepreneurs build empires. But only if you’re paying attention. Because failure without reflection is just repetition, whereas failure with reflection is evolution.

Philosophers were aware of this long before psychology caught up. The Stoics—Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius—they didn’t just tolerate failure, they welcomed it. They saw adversity as the training ground for character. Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.” If your direction is clear, the stumbles become part of the choreography.

So, ask yourself: Are you failing toward your purpose, or just flailing in circles?

Let’s be honest. You’re going to fail, you’re going to screw up, and you’re going to make decisions that, in hindsight, make you cringe. Good... That means you’re trying and moving forward. That means you’re not sitting on the sidelines waiting for life to hand you a perfect plan.

Failing in the right direction means you’re choosing movement over stagnation. It means you’re willing to look foolish in pursuit of something meaningful. It means you’re not letting fear dictate your trajectory.

So, next time you fall, ask yourself: Did I fall forward? Did I learn something? Did I get closer to the truth of who I am and what I want?

If the answer is yes, then congratulations. You’re failing beautifully.

Until next time,

Scott and Lennart