My 2026 resolution is to fail more often.

Yes you read that correctly; my 2026 resolution is to fail more often.

That may seem silly, terrifying, or downright confusing to you, so let me explain.

Failing as we know it means to be unsuccessful. But as every annoying therapist (myself included) has said, “perspective is everything”.

What if failure wasn’t this awful, taboo, shameful thing that we make it out to be?

We live in a culture that is led from such ego, fear, and seriousness that somewhere along the way we were taught that letting others see us put forth effort, make mistakes, and be imperfect is bad and embarrassing.

But you know what’s actually bad and embarrassing? Getting in our own damn way of valuable lessons, experiences, and understanding because we were scared to try, fail, and be bad at things. And for what? So we seem “put together” to other people? Ha! We are all making it up as we go along. There’s no one way to live life. We can stop pretending that some people are better or worse than others when we’re all here to learn and experience different things. You don’t judge a goldfish on how well he can climb a tree - it’s just not relevant.

We need to give ourselves permission to be new at things, and let me hold your hand while I say this - you will “fail”. Humans are flawed and that’s okay. Let’s embrace and radically accept this so we can work with it instead of against it.

We’re not made to stay the same forever. We’re made to stretch and grow, to learn and adjust, to laugh at our missteps with love and be better the next time.

We can do this in a million different ways - implementing a fresh world view, self talk, reflective journaling, praying, meditating, anything that draws on your creativity.

But an easy concrete way is saying “this is new for me, I’m open to learning” instead of "I'm bad at this, I’m going to fail” because by doing just this one thing, you switch your brain from a panicked state into an open state, from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, from a shameful & fearful narrative to a compassionate & human narrative - this is rewiring your brain in real time.

So, I encourage you to join me in reframing what failing is this year.

Failure is a sign of bravery. It’s evidence of guts and effort. By failing we’re actually learning, growing, and improving. It’s one the coolest and most courageous things we can do.

Wishing you successful fails in 2026.

Sydne / January 2026