This week’s topic at the MFRW’s 52-Week Blog Challenge is a tricky one. Fear of failure. Are we our own worst enemies?
When the topic of success and failure comes up, my thoughts generally drift toward writing because other than my family, it’s the most important part of my life. I can’t say I’ve ever feared failure regarding writing because success and failure depends on many things. Am I or was I ever financially successful at writing? There was a time when I made some fairly decent money. Lately? No. My thoughts about success and failure have changed a lot over the years.
When I first started writing, I considered success receiving an acceptance instead of rejection. It took ten years before I got an acceptance. After that others followed and I made a little money. At that time, I felt pretty good about making any amount, let alone enough to actually pay the bills.
Sales dropped after several years, but I didn’t stop writing. I didn’t stop submitting. I still got rejections and acceptances. Now my idea of success is being in a position to continue writing, even if it’s not my full time job. If my family and I are happy and healthy, my bills are paid, and I’m still writing books, I consider myself pretty lucky and successful.
Sometimes I think fear of failure is based on other people’s standards. For example, when my first novel was published way back when by an ebook company, that wasn’t good enough to a lot of people who thought only print books were “real” books. Even in the print world, people placed standards on each other’s work. For instance hardcover books were more “real” than paperbacks. Then there was the old attitude that independently published books were crap and you weren’t a success if you self-published. Well, over the years I’ve read what I consider some traditionally published crap, so in my opinion that was another case of people attempting to push their standards on others. Nowadays I’m glad to see so many people are self-publishing successfully. To me a story is a story, whether it’s electronic, paperback, or verbal. If you like the story and it’s presented well, then it doesn’t matter if a publisher releases it or the author. If you’re entertained, then what difference does it make how you access the story?
If you base your failure or success on other people’s opinions, then you’re less apt to focus on what’s important, such as what you want out of your life. So yes, I believe that you can be your own worst enemy regarding failure, if you don’t pursue what you want in life because you might not live up to someone else’s standards.
One last thing about failure and writing, at least in my experience, rejection never feels good, but it lessens your fear of failure. I’ve had tons of rejections over the years and I’m prepared for many more. That won’t stop me from writing and learning. Best of all, when something comes up in other parts of my life where I might fail, it doesn’t bother me as much to take the chance. I’ve failed before and it hasn’t killed me.
Would you like to know what other authors in the MFRW 52-Week Blog Challenge think about failure and if we’re our own worst enemies? Please click here.
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If you base your failure or success on other people’s opinions, then you’re less apt to focus on what’s important, such as what you want out of your life
Very true, Kate! I had to learn this twenty years ago.
Good point! I consider those rejection letters sort of like merit badges. I giggled when I got my 25th rejection because I imagined finally earning an embroidered badge to attache to my writer-scout uniform.
Good insight! Our definitions of “success” and “failure” change as we gain experience and perspective to the effect that the metrics of success and failure cannot be measured solely by dollars.