On Failure

September 24, 2014

failure

I’ve been staring at a blank blog post page for at least an hour (while half watching that George Clooney movie The Descendants which is an absolutely depressing movie, by the way), and what I think I’ve really been trying to figure out how to say is that over the last several years of starting a freelance career, I’m glad I haven’t been afraid to fail.

Last night, over Gchat with my little brother, I was trying to explain why it’s absolutely okay to try all of the things when you’re trying to land on a career after collegeHow the heck else are you going to figure out what you want to do with your life if you don’t give things a shot? Some people (like my darling husband) figure out what they want to do pretty quickly, and others of us shop around for a while – and might keep shopping forever!

Over the last few years, I’ve tried so many ideas and pitched so many projects. Some of them have worked, and some of them just haven’t. But I’m glad I wasn’t afraid that some of those ideas would fail. I’m glad I was able to focus on the projects and ideas that were successful and capitalize on and replicate those.

So the moral of my story is that there is no shame in failing when you’re trying things out. It’s the only way some of us learn what success looks like.

Image above of me failing at taking a selfie a few weeks ago. There’s a little shame in that. 

2 Comments

  • Reply Sophie Harriet September 26, 2014 at 6:23 pm

    I couldn’t agree with you more – often I try too hard to succeed at everything and subsequently burn out. Nobody can be good at everything, and not everything has to be a triumph. It’s such a hard lesson to learn, but an extremely important one.

  • Reply Gerry Boyle September 27, 2014 at 11:24 am

    I agree, Emily, but I don’t think of it as failure. Life is about exploration, and so-called failures are just ways of exploring new places, jobs, ways of thinking. In the process you learn a lot, about life, about yourself.

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