Ryan,

Good post! We can't be good at everything, but when failing, the most important thing is not to become discouraged but to learn and grow from that failure. And not be afraid to try something new. It will help in one's own development and setting up attainable and stretch goals for the future.

And I like your statement of "approach things from a different angle." Often times I am so focused on doing things or thinking about things the same way that I forget to try approaching from different perspectives.

Ryan -

It's tough, but what doesn't crush us makes us stronger. Many people smarter than both of us failed many more times than both of us, but they kept on trying. They got up, dusted themselves off, and pushed on.

You're young enough to make your mistakes now and still have time to recover. Experiment. Try new things. whatever you do, don't stop trying. Life isn't a spectator sport!

Hi Ryan, nice post!
I agree that it's sometime necessary to abandon a goal because it turns out not to be achievable...

However, the trick is how to decide whether a goal is simply not achievable or whether you did not try hard enough. Quite often, success comes only from the fact that everybody else was giving up earlier. On the other side, not to know when to stop is dnagerous as well. I assume there are more unsuccessful actors in Hollywood who tried for years to become successfull than there are movie superstars...

Rather than focussing on goals I think it's much more helpful to find out about one's passion and motivation, e.g. is creatitity or scientific discovery among your main motivation? As long as you continue to focus on goals which are aligned with your passion, I guess you are on the right track...