For the most part, failure is a subjective interpretation of an objective outcome. For example... you run 10km in fifty-two minutes and interpret it as a failure because your goal was to run sub fifty minutes and you didn't. Your story is "I failed" and accordingly you ‘feel' like a failure. Your feeling is real and as a result, your literal experience is disappointment, sadness, frustration and maybe even, anger. Conversely, I run the exact same time (52 minutes) and I feel like an absolute rockstar because it's my best ever time. And while I'm feeling great, you're feeling rubbish, despite our identical result. We each have different stories and subsequently, we each have a different emotional, psychological and experiential outcome. Me, positive. You, negative. Same time, different thinking. Same time, different story. Same time, different self-created experiences. Failure. Winner. When it gets super interesting is when I tell you about the girl who also ran fifty-two minutes while aiming for sub fifty, but didn't feel like a failure because she learned a lot through the experience, and subsequently saw the outcome as a valuable lesson, which would serve her well in future events.