If I have to read one more bizbro's blog about "I love failure and you can too" I might puke. Someone needs to tell these fartsniffers that not being good at something you just started != failure. Failure is when you know what you are doing but still do not accomplish the things you have set out to do. A professional sports team losing a game is a failure. a t-ball team losing a game is not a failure because the players are young and still figuring out the game (and their own bodies for that matter). Your widget company eating shit, despite your competencies and experience in both widget production and business, is a failure. Your widget company eating shit because you don't have experience in widget production or business is not a failure unless you do not recognize the difference (and if you did, you would know better than to bank your efforts on doing something you are not ready for).

The problem is that they don't make this clarification and they send an army of incompetents into the fray, and they will furiously beat their own dicks against the wall, because they cannot recognize that they are incompetent. They are convinced that they are still at the "beginner stage". It is important to be open to the so-called "beginner's mind" but it is equally important to recognize that your ability to operate at a certain level dictates where you should be operating. Having the mindset of a beginner who is eager to learn and improve is only valuable for a non-beginner if she has built that foundation of competency. Being bad at baseball prevents one from operating at a professional level and no amount of "eagerness" will allow you to play for the Dodger's.

This does not mean that people who suck at baseball are barred from playing baseball, but it does mean that they have no business trying to play at a level beyond their capabilities. It's ok to be on the B-team or even the C-team. Nobody will think less of you (nobody who's opinion matters anyways) but you playing with college players while operating at a beer league level is only going to make you miserable and everybody on the team hate you for taking up a spot that someone else is more capable of taking advantage of. (this is also related to why "Equality of Opportunity" is not a helpful political goal, despite what the yuppie NPR liberal jetset might think. A topic for another day)

Recognizing that you are operating on a level that is not commensurate to your expectations in whatever endeavor you are partaking in and contextualizing your activities based on that is important for becoming better at {thing} without giving in to despair and frustration. Otherwise, you're just gonna be walking around with a sore dick.