Nobody likes to fail, and that’s quite understandable. But there are times when failure is the best thing that can happen to you.

And those times are the ones where the alternative is doing nothing at all, which is more often than we usually realise.

You see, failure is not just a sign that you tried, it’s actually proof that you’re not afraid, that failure doesn’t usually kill you (or even hurt half as much as you feared), and a lesson in how not to do it next time.

Failing quickly is the best failure of all. Rather than hesitating, sitting on the fence, or wondering if it ‘might work’, you try it, fail, learn the lesson and still have time to try something else.

And all in the time it might have taken to do nothing useful at all.

“You miss all the shots you don’t take”, as Wayne Gretzky said, and that’s real failure.