If it’s not meant to be, maybe it’s better not to force it. When is a time where effort and intention should change the course of history? An effort to do something may result in failure or success. With sustained effort, things should succeed. Is there anything wrong with that?
It will surely depend on how far you are willing to go to achieve something. Suppose you are trying to attain a difficult technical degree. You have spent hundreds of hours studying and consulting many teachers, but somehow it is still out of reach. You are still determined to get it. What if you cheated? Or what if you somehow managed to bribe the marking committee?
There will be times when failure to get some thing could mean you find meaning to some thing else. By failing the technical degree perhaps it painted a great possibility for you to have a multi million dollar business. Surely it is not always going to be better than what you hoped in the beginning, that will be wishful thinking. But if the road gets too hard it is ok to throw in the towel once you exhausted a lot of the avenues. The trick to success is to know when is this time.
For you can’t be successful in everything. But you can make sure you continuously assess your focus so you at least succeed in one thing in your life.