Samuel Beckett was a bit of a pessimist, or maybe he was just the most realistic guy in the room. When he wrote the words "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better," he wasn't trying to make a motivational poster for a corporate breakroom. He was describing the grit of the human condition. Honestly, most people hear the phrase try again fail again and think it sounds like a recipe for a burnout-induced breakdown. They think it's about banging your head against a brick wall until the wall moves. It isn't. It’s about the iteration. It’s about the fact that if you aren't failing, you’re probably just playing it way too safe in a world that rewards the bold.
Success is messy.
We see the highlight reels on Instagram or LinkedIn and assume it was a straight line from point A to point B. It never is. You’ve probably heard the stories about Dyson vacuum cleaners or those famous Silicon Valley "pivots," but we rarely sit with the actual discomfort of the "fail again" part. It sucks. It’s embarrassing. It makes you want to quit and move to a remote island where nobody knows your name. But there is a specific, almost scientific reason why failing better is the only way to actually get where you're going.
The Neurological Reality of Failing Better
Neuroplasticity is a buzzword these days, but it’s relevant here. When you mess up, your brain actually pays more attention. A study published in the journal Nature Communications by researchers at the University of Arizona found that there is a "Sweet Spot" for learning. They basically discovered that we learn fastest when we are failing about 15% of the time. If you’re getting it right 100% of the time, your brain is on autopilot. You aren't growing. If you’re failing 50% of the time, you’re just getting frustrated and your dopamine levels crater.
🔗 Read more: Big Bother Crossword Clue: Why This Wordplay Stumps Even Pro Solvers
But that 15%? That’s where the magic happens.
When you try again fail again, you are essentially fine-tuning the neural pathways required for mastery. Think about a toddler learning to walk. They don't fall down once and think, "Well, I guess bipedalism isn't for me." They fall. They get a little further next time. They fall again. They are failing better every single time until their cerebellum catches up with their ambitions. As adults, we lose that. We get "ego-bruised." We start worrying about what the neighbors think or what our boss will say during the quarterly review.
Why We Get the Try Again Fail Again Mantra Wrong
The biggest misconception is that "trying again" means doing the exact same thing over and over. That’s just the definition of insanity—or at least a very fast way to lose your mind.
True iteration requires an autopsy of the failure.
Take James Dyson. Everyone loves to mention he had 5,126 failed prototypes before his vacuum worked. But he didn't just build the same vacuum 5,126 times. Every single version was a response to a specific failure in the previous one. He was looking at the dust, the suction, the airflow. He was failing better. If he had just stuck to the try again fail again loop without the "better" part, he would have just had 5,000 pieces of junk and zero suction.
There is a huge difference between "blind persistence" and "informed iteration." Blind persistence is prideful. It’s refusing to admit your initial idea might have been a bit crap. Informed iteration is humble. It says, "Okay, that didn't work. Why?"
The Social Stigma of the "Second Fail"
The first failure is often met with sympathy. "Oh, good for you for trying!" people say. They give you a pat on the back. It’s the second, third, and fourth failures where the room starts to get quiet. People start looking at you like you’re a bit delusional. This is the "Valley of Despair" in the creative process.
In 2026, the pressure to be "optimized" is higher than ever. We have apps to track our sleep, our steps, our productivity. Failing feels like a bug in the system. But history is littered with people who were "failures" for decades.
- Vera Wang didn't enter the fashion industry until she was 40.
- Stan Lee didn't create his first hit comic until he was almost 39.
- The Wright brothers were literally bicycle mechanics who people thought were suicidal for trying to fly.
Their secret wasn't that they were smarter than everyone else. It was that they were willing to be the "village idiot" for long enough to figure out the solution. They embraced the try again fail again cycle because they realized the social cost of failure was actually lower than the personal cost of never trying.
Emotional Resilience: The Invisible Muscle
How do you actually survive the "fail again" part? It’s not about being a robot. It’s about emotional regulation.
Psychologist Carol Dweck’s work on "Growth Mindset" is the foundation here. If you have a fixed mindset, failure is a verdict. It says "You are not talented." If you have a growth mindset, failure is just data. It’s a signal. But even Dweck has noted that just having the mindset isn't enough. You need the infrastructure to support it.
This means:
- Budgeting for failure (financially and emotionally).
- Surrounding yourself with people who won't judge the "messy middle."
- Knowing when to take a break so "failing better" doesn't turn into "failing into a burnout."
Sometimes, "trying again" means walking away for a week. Your brain needs time to process the "error signals" it received. If you keep pushing while you're tilted—a gaming term for being so frustrated you play worse—you’re just going to compound the mistakes.
Case Study: The Gaming Industry's "Permadeath" Lessons
Look at the way people play "Roguelike" games like Hades or Elden Ring. These games are built entirely on the concept of try again fail again. You start, you fight, you die. You lose your progress. But you don't really lose everything. You keep the knowledge of the enemy’s patterns. You keep a few upgrades. You get slightly stronger.
Gamers don't view "Game Over" as a personal insult. They view it as a necessary part of the loop. If you beat a game on the first try without dying, was it even a good game? Probably not. It was too easy.
Life is the ultimate Roguelike. The stakes are higher, sure, but the mechanics are the same. Every time you fail at a business venture, a relationship, or a fitness goal, you are carrying "upgrades" into the next run. You know what red flags to look for. You know where your energy levels dip. You know which "bosses" to avoid until you're leveled up.
Practical Steps to Failing Better
Stop trying to avoid the fall. Start trying to control the landing.
First, you have to define what "better" looks like. If you fail, ask yourself: "What is the one thing I know now that I didn't know five minutes ago?" If you can answer that, the failure wasn't a waste of time. It was a tuition payment to the University of Experience.
Second, shorten the feedback loop. Don't spend two years building a product in secret only to find out nobody wants it. Build a "Minimum Viable Product." Fail in two weeks instead of two years. The faster you fail, the faster you get to the version that actually works.
Third, decouple your identity from your output. You are not your failed startup. You are not your rejected manuscript. You are the person who wrote the manuscript. The manuscript is an object; you are the creator. Creators make bad things all the time. It’s part of the job description.
The Actionable Framework for the "Try Again" Cycle
If you’re currently in the middle of a "fail again" phase, here is how you actually move the needle:
- Audit the wreck: Write down exactly where things went sideways. Be brutally honest. Was it timing? Was it lack of skill? Was it just bad luck? (Sometimes it is just bad luck, and recognizing that is vital for your sanity).
- Change one variable: Don't change everything at once. If you do, you won't know what actually fixed the problem. Change the marketing, OR the product, OR the price. Not all three.
- Set a "Kill Switch": Persistence is great, but stubbornness is a trap. Decide beforehand how many times you will try again fail again before you pivot to a completely new goal. This prevents you from wasting decades on something that simply isn't viable.
- Find a "Failure Buddy": Talk to someone else who is also in the trenches. There is nothing more isolating than failing while surrounded by people who seem to be winning effortlessly.
The goal isn't to become a person who never fails. That person doesn't exist—or if they do, they’re incredibly boring. The goal is to become someone who can take the hit, look at the damage, and say, "Okay, I see what happened there. Let's go again, but with a better shield this time."
✨ Don't miss: How to Saute Mushrooms: Why Your Pan Is Always Too Crowded
That is how you win. Not by being perfect, but by being the last person standing after everyone else got tired of falling down. Beckett was right. Fail again. Fail better. Eventually, the "better" becomes "good," and the "good" becomes "great." But you have to be willing to look a little foolish in the meantime.