No one goes into a new year planning to fail. We go in hoping and planning for the best. Failure is not even on our radar. And yet, research shows that 80 percent of New Year’s Resolutions fail by the beginning of February. Why do so many of us throw in the towel after just one month?

Imagine if babies gave up on learning to walk after a month. Or if we all just threw up our hands the first time we tried to tie our own shoes. No one expects babies and children to learn things overnight. We understand that learning to walk is a process that takes time and involves lots of falling. 

Somewhere on the road to adulthood, we forget that. We decide on a big goal—running a marathon or becoming a better public speaker—and expect success right out of the gate. When we aren’t Serena Williams the first time we pick up a tennis racket, we get discouraged and abandon the goal.

Serena Williams wasn’t Serena WiIlliams the first time she picked up a racket, either. 

Here’s the hard truth: there is no learning without failure. But how you fail can determine whether you succeed. If you want to succeed at learning a new skill or adopting a new habit, you first need to succeed at failing. As adults, we step into every new thing like we are going to be a pro. We don’t factor in that we’re going to fail at first. We aren’t willing to be bad at something while we’re learning.

Failure is a natural byproduct of learning. It’s going to be clunky and uncomfortable at the beginning—the key is to learn how to fail in small steps.

So if you’ve faltered on some New Year’s goals, all is not lost! I want you to pick them back up and look at them in a new light. Here are six ways to use small, strategic failures to power your success:

Practice failing when the stakes are small. Developing a new habit or learning a new skill takes practice, so practice where there’s less at stake. Seek out small opportunities that will help you normalize the new behavior before you hit the big stage. Identify one thing you can practice in a low-stakes way.

Find an accountability partner. Who’s your biggest cheerleader? The person who always has your back? Share your goal with them and turn to them when your motivation needs a pick-me-up. Commit yourself to action while your excitement over the goal is at its highest.

Right-size your fear. Write yourself a letter from your fear. Naming it, dragging it out into the light puts it in proportion. So often we take the grit approach to fear—we use it to fire ourselves up and propel ourselves into action. The grace approach to fear is to disarm it.

Claim your shame. Failure is universal—yet there’s so much shame around it. Own your failure, examine what you learned from it, and share those lessons with others. You’ll be surprised by how many people resonate with your experience.

Track your progress over time. Don’t let one bad day derail your goal entirely. Instead of tracking your new habit daily, try tracking it once a week. That allows you to look at a bigger snapshot of your progress.

Stop at the top. Don’t push yourself to the point where your performance starts to deteriorate. If you’re running, don’t run every day until you’re exhausted. Stop at a high point and you’ll be motivated to continue the next day.

There’s no learning without failure, but how you fail can make all the difference! Opt in and download my 6 Tips for Failing Smarter!