‘You ever try to bake cookies and end up with crackers? I have. They looked like flattened hopes. Tasted like toasted despair. I followed the recipe. The oven was preheated. The ingredients were fresh. I religiously followed a Pinterest lady’s “best tip” about chilling the dough overnight. 

Still: crackers.

What I didn’t do was say, “Well, clearly I’m not good enough as a human being.” Because that would be absurd, right? And yet—this is exactly what we do, all the time, with much bigger things than dessert. We follow a plan. We expect a result. When the result doesn’t arrive, we don’t question the plan. We question ourselves. Our worth. Our whole soul.

It’s definitely not logical, but it’s human.

We think: I did the job interview prep. I said the right things. I smiled with just the right amount of eye crinkle to show I’m friendly but not deranged. So why didn’t they hire me?

Or: I texted back at a normal pace. I showed interest, not desperation. I listened to that podcast on attachment styles. So why did they ghost?

Here’s the part nobody tells you: just because you followed a plan doesn’t mean it was a good one. And even if it was, it doesn’t mean life owes you the result you predicted.

We get attached to process because it gives us the illusion of control. We think if we walk the tightrope perfectly, we’ll make it across every time. But sometimes the wind just shifts. Sometimes the rope breaks. Sometimes we shouldn’t have been walking it in the first place.

And that’s not your fault.

You are not the sum of your results. That’s capitalism talking. That’s a spreadsheet worldview. That’s LinkedIn with too much caffeine.

Let me say this out loud for the people in the back who still think their last breakup means they’re unlovable: sometimes the process is wrong. Not you.

We rarely admit this because the alternative is scary: it means we have to change. And change is terrifying. It’s disorienting. It’s a freefall with no harness. So instead, we cling to our process like it’s a warm blanket. We snuggle up with our bad habits. Our mental models. Our emotionally constipated exes.

It’s familiar. Familiar is comforting. Even when it hurts.

But if you keep pulling the same lever and the machine spits out trash, it’s not your self-worth that needs auditing. It’s the lever.

A friend of mine, who also happens to be my sister—we’ll call her Jade—once chased a dream job across three cities. She networked, interned, smiled through it all. Did everything “right.” Finally landed a role. The role. And 2 years in, she was crying in the office bathroom during lunch breaks, whispering to herself, “I fought for this?”

She wasn’t weak. She just hadn’t realized that the process she followed was built on other people’s ideas of success. She’d played the game, but it was the wrong game.

When your outcome doesn’t match your effort, it’s not because you’re not enough. Sometimes you’re playing chess by all the rules—on a Monopoly board.

We have this unhealthy obsession with grit. Hustle culture tells us that if we keep pushing, keep grinding, we’ll eventually “win.” That’s cute. And sometimes it’s true. But sometimes what you need isn’t more grit—it’s direction. Discernment. The guts to ask: “Wait, why am I even trying to win this thing?”

Here’s another truth we don’t talk about enough: even good, kind, competent people fail at things. Frequently. Not because they’re awful, but because the conditions weren’t right. Because the world is chaotic. Because timing matters. Because luck is real. And because being a whole, complex person cannot be reduced to the outcome of one audition, or one date, or one proposal, or one year of your precious life.

And listen—I get it. When you’ve invested time and energy and belief into something, letting go of the result feels like setting fire to a part of yourself. It hurts. It stings like truth with no anesthesia.

But letting go of the result doesn’t mean letting go of yourself.

You can pivot. You can change course. You can even grieve the process without making it about your worth.

Think about every great show you’ve loved. At some point, the plot takes a wild turn, and you think, “What the hell is happening here?” But if the characters grow, you stick with it. Because growth makes things watchable—even messy growth. Especially messy growth.

You’re not a failed project. You’re just in a weird middle episode.

I once knew someone who spent years trying to break into the publishing industry. She did all the things you’re supposed to do—freelanced for scraps, interned unpaid, networked at events where everyone wore the same strained smile. She was sharp. Talented. The kind of person who could make a budget report read like a short story. But no matter how polished her pitch or how many doors she knocked on, the big break never came. Not in the way she hoped.

Eventually, out of sheer exhaustion, she took a job as a communications officer for a local housing nonprofit. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t in The New Yorker. But she started telling real stories—about real people, and real stakes. Her writing got rawer. Braver. And better too. Today, she trains young journalists. And before long, her byline was landing in the very places she used to dream about. 

What looked like rejection wasn’t about her talent. It was the system saying: this ladder isn’t built for you, but you can still climb. It just didn’t happen the time she anticipated it. 

Turns out, what looked like a “failure” was just a directional correction. The process wasn’t wrong. It just needed redirection and time.

Sometimes the wrong result is actually the right one. Just… delayed in making sense.

So if you’re stuck in a loop right now—ask questions about why your efforts aren’t paying off, why you’re not getting the thing you worked for—pause. Breathe. And remember: this isn’t about your worth.

Maybe it’s time to question the process. Maybe it’s time to detach from the predicted outcome and tune back in to your gut. To your joy. To the part of you that knows what feels like home, even if you’ve never been there yet.

Your job isn’t to prove your value through perfect results. Your job is to keep showing up, keep learning, and when necessary, have the courage to change.

Even if that means starting over. Even if it means throwing out the whole pan of burnt cookies.

Because you, my friend, are never the failure.

You’re just evolving.