If you know anything about golf, you’ve heard the name Rory McIlroy.

After 16 years of failing to win the Masters, he won it on his 17th attempt. And again on his 18th (this year).

When asked about what it takes to be great, he said something along the lines of: greatness is determined by how much heartbreak you’re willing to endure.

In sport, I agree with that. If you’ve read Open by Andre Agassi, he says that winning was great, but losing was worse.

Both of these men, however, have one big advantage over you and me. They can try again and again, no matter how great the failure. The pain is their choice.

But we as developers cannot go through big public failures to achieve mastery. We would end up unemployed. Instead, we rely on small failures. The kind that won’t bankrupt our employer or leak private customer data.

These small failures are hidden from the public eye. Only our peers know about them, and most of the time the reason they know is because they helped us navigate through them, so we learn, and come out the other side stronger than before.

So don’t be afraid to fail. Just make sure it’s not a catastrophic one.

Remember: it takes a lifetime to build your reputation, but seconds to destroy it.