The Courage to Try Again

Let's be real - failure sucks. From heartbreak to rejection to unrealized dreams, nothing leaves a mark quite like the disappointment of not getting what it is you want. When you put your heart and soul into something only for it to not work out, it's easy to throw up your hands and say "fuck it, I'm never doing that again."

Five years ago, I ended a relationship with the person I once considered the love of my life. I was broken. I spent the next year refusing to date, and the next year after that treating the people I did date as if they were responsible for my pain. Then, something happened. I got sick of my past interfering with my future, and I decided to make a change. I went to therapy, got to know God, and started taking care of myself. Shortly after, I met the man I would end up marrying - the ACTUAL love of my life. I've been happy and in love ever since. My husband is the literal man of my dreams, and I wouldn't have met him without having the courage to try one more time.

“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time,” Thomas A. Edison

Maybe, like me, you gave your all to a relationship that didn't work out. Maybe you took a risk to chase a dream and fell flat on your face. Or maybe, you stepped out of your comfort zone and got burned, and now you're questioning if it was ever worth it. Let's consider the idea that it was worth it all: the pain, the embarrassment, the rejection.

You are not the same person who tried and failed before. You've learned new lessons and you've grown in ways that only pain could've made you grow. You've seen what doesn't work, and now you have a chance to do things differently. It wasn't a waste, it was a lesson. When you shift your perspective, you realize that failure isn't a dead end - it's an opportunity. Plot twist - the best stories always have a few of those.

In 2010, I left home for college. I majored in Biology with the intent of getting into my university's Medical Laboratory Science program. Because of my average grades, I didn't get into the program, and I ended up joining the military as a lab tech after college instead. Once in the military, I gained several years of experience in the lab. By the time I got out, I had enough years of experience to sit for the Medical Laboratory Science certification exam. I passed, and I ended up where I wanted to be in the first place - only instead of just being an MLS, I was now an MLS with no debt and military experience which meant jobs were lining up to hire me. If I'd just gone the route I wanted to initially, I would have been thousands of dollars in the hole and my career would have never taken off the way it did.

Trying again doesn't mean repeating the past. It means adjusting your approach with a new mindset. Just because it happened in the past does not mean it will happen in the future. Maybe this time, you go slower. Maybe you set new boundaries. Maybe you raise your standards. It's not about blind optimism. It's about strategic courage. You're stepping forward - not as the person who failed, but as the person who learned from it.

So whatever it is - love, career, a personal dream - don't let the fear of failure be the reason you never get what you want. Give yourself permission to try again. Give yourself permission to believe again. Go after what you want, even if it means risking failure. There's always a chance that it could go wrong. But then again, there's always a chance that it could go right. And that's a risk worth taking.