The Writing Life
While I like the sentiment of “failure is not an option,” I can’t agree with the statement in its entirety. Failure happens, sometimes because of something I’ve done or failed to do and sometimes because of circumstances entirely out of my control. When it does, how will I stand up under it if I live life by the credo “failure is not an option”?
I’m sometimes asked how I deal with failure or how I keep moving forward when I struggle with perfectionism. One of the tricks is to keep a forward mindset as well as an other-minded one. The other, to borrow a phrase from Paul Jarvis, is to “view everything as an experiment.”
It’s hard to know what to do when you feel like a failure. Your failures seem insurmountable. They’re the bullies at the playground. They’re the opponents who outweigh you by one hundred pounds. All you can see is the size of the failures. All you can hope is that your feelings are wrong and that they won’t last forever. All you can do is stumble your way through them.
When my friend Yuvi Zalkow challenged his readers to write about their fears or failures, I knew I would take part. One, he’s a friend. Two, the assignment is a creative challenge. Three, said assignment frightens me. I know I write about my fears on this blog at times, but Yuvi’s challenge seems of an entirely different caliber.
In the past month or so, I’ve undertaken some BIG, SCARY THINGS. Things that will require sacrificing some of the free time I do have. Things that will require bravery and efforts of a different sort. Things that require a lot of behind-the-scenes work before they can be shared publicly. Things that will start to be shared in the upcoming months (All I can say is, pay attention to your inboxes and the blog.).
The problem with perfectionists, albeit not the only one (This line is becoming a theme.), is that they’re demanding. They demand a lot from themselves. They sometimes demand a lot from others. They demand, demand, demand.