Breaking the Loop Pt.1: How Conflict Causes Us to Fail Better 💔

Turning Disagreements into "Intelligent Failures"

As I sit in this cozy coworking space, nestled within a micro pod that has upholstery features of a posh hotel lobby, I find myself staring at a blank screen with unease. The cursor blinks at me—a silent metronome marking the rhythm of my current predicament.

I'm entangled in a personal conflict with my romantic partner, a five-day standoff rooted in a clash of beliefs. The uncertainty of our future together looms large, and I can't help but reflect on how the fear of failure manifests in our lives, often arriving uninvited and leaving us vulnerably raw.

The emotional cascade accompanying a possible “failure” is visceral.

At this moment, my heart races with frustration over my inability to navigate this situation with the grace and sophistication I would like to think my better self would embody.

Mentally, I feel sluggish. Burdened by the subconscious weight of the unresolved tension.

My limbic “flight” alarms are blaring and I have a strong urge to retreat—to curl up in bed and sleep until this storm passes.

Yet, amidst this emotional spiral, I recognize an opportunity: the power to leverage past lessons from conflicts to emerge as a better person, avoiding the pitfalls of repeated mistakes.

Author and Novartis Professor, Amy Edmondson once said, “It’s natural to hunker down and imply that failure is to be avoided in tough times, but this is exactly when innovation is most needed.”

I believe that there is truth to this statement, if we can harness the fear failure (or anticipated failure) brings, we can use it to find solutions.

But we all know that’s easier said than done.

Why Emotional Loops Keep Us Stuck—And How Innovative Disruption Stops It

Why does it seem so hard to make conflict productive? Especially with those we hold dear. It can thrust us into cognitive loops —repetitive cycles of negative thinking that reinforce our distress and make us dizzy. These loops often stem from our brain's propensity to perceive disagreements as threats, triggering stress responses that cloud our judgment and repeat.

Conflict is an unavoidable aspect of life, but how we respond to it determines whether we grow or stay trapped in repetitive cycles. As noted by Dr. Lena Torres, "Conflict loops form when your brain mistakes every disagreement for a life-or-death threat." (Torres, 2025).

Breaking free from these cycles requires disruptive innovation, a conscious effort that helps redirect our thoughts and mitigate the impact of these negative patterns (Equinox Therapeutic, 2023).

Embracing Intelligent Failure

Failure, when anticipated, offers a unique advantage—the chance to disrupt old, ineffective patterns before they play out again. Rather than repeating past responses that have led to shame, regret, or hurt, we can apply a framework of Intelligent Failure (coined by Harvard Profession Amy Edmondson) to test new, more constructive behaviors.

This means shifting from reaction to experimentation, treating the situation as a learning opportunity rather than an inevitable conclusion.

When we approach disagreements with a proactive plan rather than impulsive defensiveness, we open ourselves up to a crucial realization: I’m not in a fight, I’m a scientist experimenting on how this conflict can be better than the ones of the past.

So how do we intelligently fail?

Is it possible to find a way of navigating the potential onset of a “failure” with intention and strategy?

To go deeper into Amy Edmondson’s concept of Intelligent Failure, we must first start with what she identifies as 4 key experimentation factors that create intention and improve problem-solving which can help during conflict:

1. Exploration into New Territory: The endeavor ventures into uncharted areas, acknowledging that existing knowledge may not suffice. As Edmondson puts it, "There is no new knowledge to produce the results you want. You can’t look up the recipe" (Edmondson, 2023). Therefore one shouldn’t attribute past experiences with this new one.

2. Goal-Oriented Experimentation: The initiative is a thoughtful and intentional experiment aimed at achieving a favorable outcome, whether a new learning or the intended goal.

3. Hypothesis-Driven Approach: Actions are based on informed expectations, grounded in current knowledge, with an understanding that outcomes may vary. This approach ensures that even if the result isn't as intended, valuable insights are gained.

4. Minimized Risk Exposure: The failure is contained to a scale that provides insights without causing disproportionate harm or distress.

By applying these principles to personal conflicts, we shift disagreements into experiments—Which helps us design better plans for introspection, intra-personal communication, understanding, and empathy.

How to “Fail” with the Best Intentions

Our brains are wired to cling to negative experiences—a survival mechanism that once helped us avoid danger but now tends to amplify stress and self-doubt. This negativity bias fuels rumination, keeping us trapped in old patterns of thought and behavior that don’t serve us. The challenge, then, isn’t just to avoid failure (which is impossible) but to fail well—with purpose, strategy, and an openness to learning.

This week, in my attempt to recalibrate, I’ve taken a deliberate pause—an intentional reset rather than a reactive retreat. I’ve meditated in prayer, sifted through past journal entries for insights on recurring conflicts, and revisited conversations with my accountability partner, a trusted witness to both my aspirations and my blind spots. Most importantly, I’ve set boundaries—not just in terms of what I hope to achieve, but in defining which responses would signal real growth versus a relapse into old, unproductive behaviors. Because if failure is inevitable, then the goal isn’t to avoid it but to make sure it moves us forward rather than dragging us back.

The Path Forward

As I navigate this real-time and very scary personal dilemma, I'm conducting an internal audit—reflecting on how I might have handled it in the past, assessing how I was perceived, and setting intentions for how I wish to show up this time. Failure, in this context, becomes a form of personal experimentation. My hope is that by proactively laying this groundwork, I will reframe this uncomfortable conflict as an opportunity to practice new approaches and increase the likelihood of favorable outcomes. While the result remains uncertain, I know that I can use past failures as data to inform a strategic path forward.

"In Part 2: The Turning Point in Conflict, we explore how the truth urts but that not what’s killing us. I reveal how changing my relatiionsip with conflict helped me break destructive patterns through disruptive innovation."

Breaking the Loop Pt.2: The Turning Point in Conflict💔

“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” —Confucius

In the end, life's unpredictability ensures that failures are inevitable. We can, however, choose how we emerge from them—seeing failure not as the antithesis of success but as a stepping stone toward it. So, let's embrace our failures and continue moving forward.

I keep coming back to the idea that perfection is an illusion, but growth is real.
How do we each limit how much we glorify success and find better ways for us all to progress without the fear of failure?

I don’t have all the answers but as we each continue to be curious about this topic I’m confident we’ll find a lot of nuggets along the way, and hey - maybe have some fun failing while we’re at it.

Fail well my friends,
Leyla

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Edmondson, A. C. (2023). Right kind of wrong: The science of failing well. Atria Books.

Equinox Therapeutic. (2023). 4 techniques to break negative thinking patterns.

Mindful Health Solutions. (2025). Rumination: Understanding & breaking the cycle of negative thinking.

Torres, L. (2025). 7 conflict resolution strategies backed by neuroscience.