What would you do if you could see into your future? To see your wins and your losses before they actually happen.
What would you learn from your mistakes and blunders, and your most pain-wrenching failures?
The better questions, after seeing your future, might be:
What risks would you still take? And what would happen to your future if you avoided any?
As much as we would like to avoid the pain of stumbling and falling, and the pain of loss and failure, those are the things, the events in your life, that make you, the flawed, yet remarkable, you.
Life’s not always easy; sometimes it’s ridiculously complicated, and sometimes it’s painful, oh, too painful.
Sometimes we wonder if we can go on, if we should go on.
We wonder. Why do we even try?
Sometimes, the days are just too damn hard, and the words come few and far between.
Sometimes we want to give in and give up. Often. Too often.
Sometimes we wish we could just get a break, just a little break, but no one seems to hear us, and some days it seems like no one cares and inside, inside it continues to hurt, hurt so much. But we try, we continue to press-on. Or, at least, we want to.
Are we good enough? We want to believe that we are.
We do. Don’t we?
But Writer’s Doubt corrupts. It makes us doubt even what we believe.
Doubt is the deal breaker. It’s the closed door with no lock and no key. It’s the one thing that causes us to give in to disbelief and fear, to dread and despair.
We need not be victims of doubt. We can overcome, defeat, and crush it.
Yes, we can!
Yes, you will.
Let’s not wish to look into the future so we can avoid failure and pain, because without failure we cannot succeed and win. Without loss we cannot gain. Without sorrow we cannot attain happiness and contentment.
The trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.
–Norman Vincent Peale
We all make mistakes. We are human after all. And that’s okay.
3 Tips to build upon your awesomeness as a writer:
1) Be brave and take risks. Try things that might not work. (You can’t be brave if you already know the future.)
2) When you’re rejected, don’t give up. No, strive to become a better writer. Leap.
3) Don’t regret your mistakes. Learn from them. Allow them to make you into a better person and a better artist.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Even if you see the future, you still have to live the present, you still have to make the mistakes, you still have to fail, and you still have to live through the pain and strive to accomplish your goals and improve yourself to become the writer you were always meant to be.
You’re better than you think you are. Failure is not permanent. It’s through our mistakes and failures that we find our true voice, the direction we are meant to go from the lessons we’ve learned and the pain we have endured.
Don’t regret the events of your life, the good, the bad, or even, the ugly. Don’t wish for take-backs or do-overs.
This is your life. You’re on your path for a reason.
Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.
–Jim Rohn
You’re strong enough. And you’re good enough.
You’re awesomeness is in the getting back up and getting back at it, learning and striving to improve every day with every step you take and every word you write.
Not everyone will understand you all of the time, sometimes not even those you love and care about the most will “get you.” But that’s okay. It’s an imperfect world with imperfect outcomes. Live.
When the time is right, they’ll understand, and even if they don’t, remember they also have their lives to live and you won’t understand or “get” everything they do either. And you know what? That’s okay, too.
So get back at it. Walk your path, and if you stumble, catch yourself, pick yourself back up, and keep learning.
Stop punishing yourself. Please. We need you to keep going. We need you to keep writing. We need your words. You’re creativity and artistic touch is sorely needed in the world, especially now.
Write. For Heaven’s sake, write.
Your challenge:
Here’s your challenge, write something that has sincere meaning to you, something that terrifies you to write openly about and then publish it on your blog for the world to read.
Taking this challenge is entirely up to you, with all the responsibilities thereof your own, but if you do take this challenge, come back here and share the link to your work with us in the comments. I’ll pick the ones that really move me and tweet them and hopefully fellow readers will do the same.
If you do not have your own blog yet, consider starting one or use Medium or another public online platform.
