What counts is not so much whether a person actually achieves what they set out to do; rather it matters whether efforts has been expended to reach the goal, instead of being diffused or wasted.*
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

There’s something I must do.
I may tell myself that I can’t do this, or
I don’t have a choice, and
for a little while I’ve let myself off the hook and
I feel more comfortable, but
there are some things that won’t go away, and now
here it is again.

*Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.