Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill

Most of us have heard the saying, “Failure is NOT an option.” It seems to fit well with some kind of spy story, where the character is warned of the dire consequences of not completing their mission. The saying has seeped into our popular culture, and for many it becomes a kind of mantra or goal.

This sounds like a worthy goal on the surface, and there are some cases where it’s true (high-stakes things like space missions or cloak-and-dagger spy work come to mind). There’s a problem though, particularly for those of us that tend to be more perfectionist. For many perfectionists, failure can tend to mean, “Anything that doesn’t live up to my (often impossibly high) standards.”