Rihanna has been through a lot this year on a personal level, from being into an unhealthy relationship to becoming the victim of physical abuse and then having her entire tragedy play out in the media. The lesson she chooses to learn from all that’s been happening in recent months is that nothing is a failure but rather a new experience to learn from – and she just got that inked on her chest, OK! Magazine says.

The singer is known for her love of tattoos, so perhaps it’s not that much of a surprise that she recently decided to get a new one to mark the new stage in her life. Nothing is a failure, Rihanna believes, but rather a lesson that can teach us how to avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Because she knows from her own experience that this checks in real life, she got it tattooed on her chest.

The other night, Rihanna went to the NYC tattoo parlor East Side Ink, her favorite, and got Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy to do her latest piece. “She came in at about 2:00 A.M. She told me in advance she’d be coming, and then when she got there, she told me what she wanted: ‘Never a failure, always a lesson,’ but written backwards,” Bang Bang says for the publication. Photos of the new tattoo have already been made available.

Bang Bang is the same tattoo artist that did Rihanna’s gun tattoo on her ribcage earlier this year, shortly after the Chris Brown controversy. As we were also telling you back then, photos of the small depiction of a gun on the side of Rihanna’s body generated much controversy at the time because it was thought she was somehow encouraging and glamorizing violence with it, especially in the context in which she was a victim of domestic violence as well and all eyes were on her.

“If I had to say why she got it, it’s because she kicks [expletive] and everybody supports her! She can do whatever she wants. She’s one of the nicest and sweetest people I know. She has a lot of really good friends supporting her. We didn’t talk about why she specifically got it. She’s a rock. She’s just thinking about having a great time now,” Bang Bang said then about the meaning behind the gun tattoo.