everyone wants to avoid failure but
despite our best efforts it happens all
the time
failure can be difficult to accept but
it can also be an incredible learning
opportunity years ago I wrote my first
novel this science fiction tale of
renewable energy and unrequited love and
it was absolutely terrible before I
started I had one goal to create a
quality piece of art and when the final
product fell short of this goal I deemed
it a total failure but after some time
passed I realized I learned more about
writing and storytelling from creating
that horrible novel than anywhere else
that realization made me reconsider the
value of failure now we need to make one
thing clear failure itself is a drag a
bummer and emotional kick in the gut
it'll leave you vulnerable and
embarrassed and you will probably
encounter it at some point in your life
but failure does not mean you are stupid
or worthless
it means you took a calculated risk
invested time and effort into something
and came up short that's all failure can
bring anyone down
I used to approach each creative project
as if it was destined to be a timeless
masterpiece and when the result wasn't
as good as I hoped I'd sink into despair
over my apparent lack of talent and
vowed to never leave the house again but
making myself feel bad got me nowhere
so if you fail you can mourn for a while
but don't get comfortable in the sadness
if you're truly eager to improve you'll
need to figure out what went wrong
it's tough to admit when we've done
something poorly but in order to learn
from failure you have to be honest about
the shortcomings in your work the sooner
you admit to these shortcomings the
sooner you can improve after reflecting
on my novel I realized that my abilities
needed work so I read writing books to
improve my storytelling studied new
subjects for inspiration practiced
writing as often as possible
eventually I gathered the confidence to
start a new project about a crazy goose
I told myself that I wouldn't
sup like last time so I went out and
tried and failed again understand that
failure is not an endpoint but merely a
part of the self-improvement process
although it's unpleasant it's a chance
to learn and gain experience even though
my crazy goose story wasn't great it was
better than the novel I continued to
study and practice and when I started
another project about a wisecracking
dinosaur it turned out better than the
goose story I wasn't a best-selling
author or anything but there was a
notable difference in my work if I judge
those projects by my original goal than
yes they failed as pieces of art but
thanks to those experiences I became a
better writer when I consider those
silly stories from that perspective they
aren't failures at all whenever you're
trying new things you will almost
certainly run into failure but if you
have an idea worth pursuing pursue it to
the best of your ability even if it
doesn't turn out the way you want and
learn all you can from the experience
then try again and do better stay
curious and open to self-improvement and
failure will always be temporary
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