Member-only story
So You Failed. Now What?
Confront your failures. But don’t join the cult of failure.
You just read your hundredth rejection letter and burst into baby tears. Thank god nobody was watching. You’re such an ugly crier. Yet another thing you suck at.
You need to practice your crying, girl. Or dude.
Who hasn’t heard that voice in their head? When you’ve lost your fifth job interview. Watched another promotion sail by. Got dumped, again. Suddenly all those mantras about failure don’t make you feel so great anymore. You know how to fail. You’re good at that.
An entire industry romanticizes failure now. They’ve formed a cult of failure, and they want you to join for $29.95. They’ll give you a badge for each time you screw up.
Yeah, failure happens. It comes before success. But we have to do more than fail. We have to figure out why.
That’s hard. And no single answer usually exists. But you have to prod yourself and your approach.
Lesson 1. Make sure you’re doing what you want.
Once upon a time, I tried to write a fantasy novel. Just one problem. Although I like a handful of fantasy writers, it’s not my genre. So I was kidding myself the whole time.
