It’s very hard to fail completely if you aim high enough. — Clive Barker

It’s very hard to fail completely if you aim high enough.

Author: Clive Barker

Insight: Most of us learn to fail by aiming low. We pick safe targets, manageable goals, things we're pretty sure we can hit. And we do hit them—then feel oddly empty about it. We succeeded at something that didn't matter much. But here's what's strange: when you swing for something genuinely difficult, the usual rules flip. Even if you fall short, you've typically moved further than you would have aiming at something modest. Think about learning an instrument, starting a difficult conversation, or changing careers. The person who tries to write a novel and ends up with 50 messy pages has actually done more than someone who "successfully" writes nothing. The person who bombs an audition for the role they really wanted is still in a different place than someone who never auditions. There's a threshold where the attempt itself becomes valuable, even if the exact outcome you pictured doesn't materialize. This doesn't mean recklessness. It means recognizing that complete failure—real, total loss—gets harder to achieve the more ambitious you become. Your stretch attempts tend to produce something: skills, connections, self-knowledge, at minimum. It's the small, comfortable aims that can leave you with genuinely nothing but regret.