How I Fail

This morning I got to thinking about my failures, all the things that I’ve tried that haven’t worked out and all of my perceived failures. I fail everyday, sometimes 10x a day, as a mother, as a wife, as a woman, as a writer and as a human. Today I’ve been pondering just how wonderful they all are.

My first failure as a writer was my inability to see myself as such for so long. Despite my years of doing it, I kept waiting for the moment to “become one” and I hardly ever believed that it was possible. I thought that just writing didn’t make me a writer. And, a part of me was right in believing that and another part of me was very wrong. Here’s why, no - just putting a pen to paper does not make me a best-selling author, but putting pen to paper really is one of the first stepping stones to reaching the goal of being a writer.

For a long time I wrote endlessly; I would journal and write stories and look for inspiration everywhere. But I never did anything with it, other than write it. I feel like that was a failure as a writer but I began to learn that I would have to have the courage to show people.

Down the road to another set of failures, I started writing and releasing The Green Archway. The failures here are outstanding. From learning how to time manage as an “actual” writer, to trial and error of creating an eBook, to sales. By no means has the success of The Green Archway put me any closer to a Pulitzer, but it was a lot of fun to write; I truly believe in the story, and it taught me a lot.

This whole year so far could easily be looked at as a failure to me professionally. You see, I was working in an office for the years previous to this one; I was working there when I released the first part of The Green Archway, but at the end of 2014 I was faced with some decisions to make. I left my job and decided that my new job would be looking for “the one” in Brantford and writing. My only problem was that no matter what job I got here, it would be the same kind of work that I was qualified to do, which wouldn’t put me any closer to my career goal. It only took a matter of days for the reality of my decision to sink in and for the turmoil of it to hit me. What in the world had I thought would happen? I had possibly made the worst decision of my life at the worst possible time for my family, and I felt like a big fat failure.

Now, almost 8 months into 2015 and minimal “job” opportunities outside of writing, I’ve realized that I am and have been where I am supposed to be and doing exactly what I am supposed to, in every aspect of my life. Am I a huge success? No. Will I be? Who knows. That doesn’t matter because what does matter is that we try, that we trust and that we don’t let our failures bring us down, but we learn from them and use them to get us where we’re going. These are lessons that I have learned the hard way since forever, really, and continue to have to relearn everyday.

So I will continue to look for the inspiration, I will continue to write, I will continue to do the thing that feels right in my soul and trust that I have done these with the best intentions, and I will continue to fail and keep trying and accept that these things happen for a reason.

The things we try that don’t work out can always be blessings because we have an opportunity to learn from them and move forward so we can reach the intended goal and because they will lead us to or away from something, toward the way things are supposed to be even when we don’t understand why yet. Every failure or perceived failure means we’ve tried, and we’re one step closer to getting it right.

#MondayInspiration