Decide ahead of time how much failure you can afford. Then spend it without guilt.

Deciding your limit in advance changes what failure does to you. With no number, every setback feels open-ended, so you either stop far too early or keep pushing past the point where it makes sense. Naming the money, time or embarrassment you can afford turns a vague dread into a budget, and a budget is something you are allowed to spend.

Set the figure before you start: six months, two hundred dollars, ten rejections. Write it somewhere you will find it again. When the failures arrive, mark them off and keep going until the budget is genuinely gone.