Anyone who didn’t make a mistake never made anything new

Ever wondered whether some of the things we do in our day are wrong — and whether we even notice at the time? Yesterday someone said to me, “Anyone who didn’t make a mistake never made anything new,” and it stayed with me.

It feels true when you think about it. How else were so many things discovered? Dyson, for example, created over 5,000 prototypes before finding the one that worked. Perseverance is celebrated everywhere — in innovation, in success, in growth. Yet when it comes to ourselves, our lives, our relationships, we can struggle to offer ourselves that same patience. Sometimes we give up on us. Why is that?

Right now, I’m navigating a heartbreak I never imagined I’d have to face.

I want happiness. I want the future I thought I was walking towards — the one I’ve pictured in my mind since I was a little girl. And suddenly it feels as though the ground beneath me has shifted. I’m standing in unfamiliar territory without a map, without a guide, without a clear light ahead. Everything I thought I understood feels uncertain, and that is unsettling in ways that are hard to put into words.

This feels like the moment when I should be strong, when I should persevere as I do in so many other areas of my life. But the truth is quieter than that. I feel lost. I feel tender. And I don’t yet know what the next step looks like.

I want my life back.

But I also find myself wondering — do I want the life I had exactly as it was, with the future I once saw so clearly? Right now, it feels like yes. And yet, perhaps that path wasn’t meant to continue in the way I expected.

Maybe making mistakes isn’t about failure at all. Maybe it’s about learning how to build something new. Still, I don’t feel particularly brave. I don’t feel especially strong. And the person I would usually talk this through with — the one who helped me find clarity — isn’t here to guide me anymore.

So for now, I sit with the uncertainty.

And perhaps this is what quiet resilience looks like — not having answers, not feeling fearless, but choosing to stay. To breathe. To keep showing up gently, even when everything feels fragile. Maybe resilience isn’t about charging forward, but about trusting that even in the not-knowing, something within me is still holding on… still learning… still becoming.

I may not see the path yet, but I’m still here — and that has to count for something.