What seems as a 'failure' on our part is simply part of God's bigger plan for your life. One of the most important things that I have learned is that I can't screw it up. I always believed the scripture;
Rom 8:38-38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yet at the same time I believed that although even satan himself can't keep me from the love of God that yet somehow I had the power on my own to keep me away from God. That was always frightening to me as I thought that I myself had the power to thwart God's plan for my life. Goes back into the 'freewill' thing that we are all inculcated with during our time in Babylon.
You can't possibly screw up God's plan for you. Even though you don't know the steps your taking and you feel that you have failed yet at the same point in time even now you are exactly where God wants you to be....even in the midst of perceived failures. It is those very failures that allows us to 'look back' at a later time and see that God's hand was there all along. It brings little comfort when you are going through it and it won't be until later that you can see it but right now your exactly where God wants you to be and your doing exactly what God wants you to do. You may not know the way but HE is the way and it is enough. You do not in and of yourself have the power to mess up God's plan for your life. Coming to understand this truth brings great freedom as it takes all the pressure off your shoulders. Whether I am destined to be a vessel of honor or dishonor I do not yet know. What I do know is God is both able and has promised to bring me to be where I need to be in the end and I can rest in that.