For a book on success, "The Art of Doing: How Superachievers Do What They Do and How They Do It So Well," we found that the highly successful people we interviewed—in the arts, business, media and tech—failed and failed often. Those failures were key to their success. But embracing failure isn’t always easy. From the fear of failure that stops us from even trying to the collapse of will when we don’t achieve the success we'd imagined, cognitive attitudes to failure can destroy our ability to pursue our goals. The good news? If, like highly successful people, we perceive our setbacks as opportunities for self-education and motivation instead of events that will permanently derail us, we may surprise ourselves with how far we can go.