How many times have we thought that failing is bad? Most people think of a failure they had and say to themselves: “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do it”, or even worse, they stop trying. Why?
For most people, failure is a synonym for defeat, a sign to do something different or a warning not to try that again. Even though there’s a biological reason for that (as you’ll see later on), I’d like to defy that definition in this article and present a different one that could be more positive and perhaps, more useful.
To do that, let me tell you a personal story that happened to me a few days ago. As part of the beginning of a new semester, we had a team bonding activity with the whole team of EDIT, which was really fun and a great way to meet all of the new faces of the team. This event was very important for me since I’m new to EDIT, so I needed to make a good impression.
Before starting our activity, I was asked to do a card magic trick for the team, which is something that I like to do on special occasions. Doing magic is always an exciting and fun way to meet new people and when done correctly, it can make a really good impression about yourself. So basically, this was my moment to shine.
I had someone shuffle the cards, pick one at random and put it back on the deck (everything fine at the moment). To do the trick itself I needed an open space which I did not have at the time because of a round table that was blocking the way, so I proceeded to ask the audience to direct their attention to the back (where there was more space) and took my volunteer with me.
Next, I asked my volunteer to hold the deck in between her fingers (firmly but not so strong) and in the trick, I was going to retrieve her card by hitting the deck sending all the cards to the ground except the one choosen. I’ve done this trick multiple times to friends and family and it had never gone wrong, so I was pretty confident there was no margin of error.
When I hit the cards between her fingers, EVERY card fell to the ground. Every card. Not a single one was left stuck between her fingers (as I was counting on). I had failed. In a single instant, all the magic and hype that I built vanished.
“When you go out there and things inevitably don’t go according to plan just remember, that’s when your movie’s plot is just getting interesting. That’s when your protagonist is being tested (…). Enjoy things not going according to plan, if you knew the ending, it wouldn’t be worth to watch. No good story happens from things going right”
– Glen Powell
Even after countless hours of practice, nothing really prepares you for that moment in which you are exposed in front of a crowd, completely vulnerable and something goes wrong, but here’s the interesting part, how many times have we stopped trying something after failing? If you fail, whether that’s in a school/job application, an activity you find difficult (like a new language) or a new thing that you don’t know how to do (yet), you as an adult might quit or simply just try other things in which you are definitely good at.
But now I want you to think of when we were babies. When we were trying to learn how to walk and we fell, we stood up. Once we could walk, when we were trying to learn how to run and we fell (again), we stood up (again). When we were trying to speak and we couldn’t even pronounce “hello” correctly, guess what? We tried again. So if we failed countless times, why didn’t we quit or stop trying? That’s because our brain didn’t know that word, yet.
Failure didn’t exist when we were babies, it was just life. But as we grew older we started building barriers and defining our own limits based on the thoughts, emotions, memories and experiences we collected during that time and it was our brain that with all that information, gave meaning to the world failure and most of the times, it is this very meaning that refrains us from trying something different, trying something new, and sometimes, it refrains us from even trying something at all, because we feel judged, pressured, and often times we even feel bad about ourselves every time we fail or we make a mistake.
Just as Medium explains in their article of 2025 called Why the Human Brain Tends to Stop After Failure — And How to Overcome It, the reason most grown ups avoid failure is due to a survival response from our brain trying to avoid suffering from a negative outcome and seeking for social acceptance and avoid rejection, because: “(…) studies show that social pain activates the same areas of the brain as physical pain. As a result, people start avoiding risk altogether, fearing they’ll face the same emotional discomfort again” (Medium, 2025, p. 5-6).
Fear of failure is a biological thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change it, because it’s simply just our default configuration as humans. Looking back and remembering that day, that moment, I now know what I did wrong, but there’s something very valuable after every failure, which is the ability to learn and improve. When everyone was watching me, I stood with my head held high and (as the stubborn Mexican that I am) I tried once again and did an even harder trick, which this time I got right.
It was my first time doing this trick in front of so many people, I hadn’t prepared for that, I was a little nervous and everyone was looking at me not knowing what to expect but still adding up to pressure of me being about to do something out of the ordinary. When all the odds were against me, I could’ve said anything at the beginning to not do the trick and play it safe, but I didn’t. And even after things not going the way I wanted, I could’ve just ended it there and not do anything about it, but I didn’t.
Failure is not a bad thing, in fact, it’s something good, because that’s how you grow; you become a better version of yourself. You are closer to the person you are meant to be.
No matter where you come from, or what you do, you can always choose the perspective through which you want to see your life because we are always going to encounter failure, and it may be scary, but something scarier is not trying at all and staying in the same place we are right now.
So…
If you are nervous.
If you are afraid.
If you have doubts in your mind and even if you don’t think you can make it,
JUST DO IT.
Will you fail? Probably.
Will you succeed at first? Probably not.
But I can assure you one thing.
The only people that don’t fail, are the ones that don’t try…
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
– Michael Jordan
Writer: Braulio Monforte
