No one becomes a master after a single, perfect attempt. Mastery is the product of many failures, each serving an important lesson. If you think of your goal as a direction, not a destination, then failure should be embraced. Each failure provides you more of the knowledge you’ll need to continuously get better. What feels like failure in the short term is often essential to making long-term gains. There’s an old Eastern proverb that says, “The master has failed more times than the student has even tried.” We’d all be wise to take it to heart.
