Welcome or welcome back! On to episode six, the final in this series! If you’d like to hear me read this, then click here: (Music by FASSounds and Music_For_Videos from Pixabay.)
4 minute read
The word failure is so loaded. Think about the images that come up; negative and shaming. Whether it is an image of a dishevelled looking person wandering the streets or one of a graded paper with a big red F on it. Failing is falling into the abyss to battle with a Balrog and it is not fun.
I didn’t pass my driving test the first time. I failed twice. What I did not fail at though was trying again. My resilience and tenacity sent me back to once more attempt that dreaded reversing round a corner! But how many times do you try? When do you have to call time? One disappointment is enough but when they keep emerging again and again like mogwai in a swimming pool? It’s worse than the pesky gremlins themselves.
Perception of failure differs from one person to the next. We can consider what makes it a failure for us. What is this expectation we have of ourselves and is it really ours? The worse thing failure can do is stop us in our tracks. Or worse still, a fear of failing stopping us from even starting. Paralysis. Stuck. Blocked.
What was the issue for you? Didn’t reach that word count? Submission rejected? Not heard back from that contact who was recommended? Just can’t seem to tie up the end of the story? Nothing going right or even in the remotest direction of right? No? GPS totally offline? I feel you. I really do.
They say a fail is a ‘first attempt in learning’. But what if it is the second, third, fourth and so on? As part of a course I am on, we were asked to write down our dream. I hesitated. I did not dare to dream because I could not shake the fear of failing.
What is it to fail?
to not reach expectations
to not win
to not succeed
to not complete something
A lot of negatives here and that is why failing feels so emotive, pulling us downwards into a bog that we struggle to clamber out of. By the time we crawl out, darkness has fallen and we have lost our way. There is nothing wrong with seeking help. Reach out to someone else who experienced a similar fail and find out how they survived to fight another day.
Maybe all of the points listed above are valid, however instead of what we did not do, consider what we did do. Allow the little wins to stack up and reward ourselves. Eventually they will be tall enough to tower over all these perceptions of failure and disappointment. Offset a negative thought with a positive one. Whatever works for you.
E.g. What a failure I am. I only wrote 200 words this morning instead of 1000. OR - great, some success - I sat down and wrote this morning and I still have the afternoon and evening.
You are not failing. You are, like everyone else on the planet, learning and growing and it’s going to look different. It has to because you are different at each passing hour. Why do I keep on failing? Because I keep on trying and that’s not a bad thing.
The takeaway: Consider how you can make a failure successful. Is it the action that comes from it?
Next time: A Writer’s Life will return on a monthly basis in 2023 with series 2. The focus will be on publishing - getting that book in your hand. In the meantime, I may drop into your inbox every now and then with a piece of writing or news I want to share with you. Don’t be a stranger - you know where to find me!
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Listen to the poem here:
You never bathe in the same river twice. You never walk the same path twice. You never eat the same meal twice because you are ever changing. Each inhalation of oxygen is different from the last each exhalation of CO2 is different from the last it changes the earth and as the earth changes so do you, nothing stays the same. It may come back in cycles, but it spirals differently each time the river is different. And so are you, you never bathe in the same river twice. ©2022 Sarah Elliott