Stepping Stones

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. Especially this month, if I’m being perfectly honest.

The whole month of December, I’ve been taking the time to tell you some things you ought to keep in mind as 2018 closes, and to remember as we bring in 2019. These are things that some of you probably already know, that most of you should already know, but I want to tell you anyway. Why? Because sometimes all it takes is for you to hear it from someone else, for you to finally understand and embrace it.

I’ve experienced it myself, so I know firsthand.

Today’s topic? Well, I’ve experienced that, too.

#3: Failure is only a step toward success

You know this. I know you know this. You hear it all the time, you recite it to yourself every time you make a mistake and have to pick yourself off the ground, but for some of you, you’ve said it for so long that you no longer believe it like you used to. You’ve fallen down so many times that you don’t want to get up. Or you’ve succeeded so many times that you’ve forgotten failure is always an option (remember the Mythbusters' famous mantra?).

We’ve all experienced failure. You’re lying to yourself, if you say you haven’t. You’ve suffered some setbacks, and had to pick yourself up off the ground. And you’ve gotten back up, no matter how long it took you.

But you will do it. All of you. You, dear writer, you know that your writing is important. You know it’s necessary, needed, that there are people in the world who must read what you have to say. And so you pick yourself up and you start again. You try again. You try something new.

And I’m proud of you, for it.

I’m so proud of you, my friend.

And I’m proud of you for remembering that failing doesn’t make you a failure. It makes you someone who tried, and someone who will keep trying until they get it right. Failing once doesn’t mean you are the failure, only that the thing you tried didn’t work out. Failing a hundred times doesn’t mean that, either. The failure was the thing you tried, not you. Not you, my dear writer. My friend.

You are not a failure, despite the failings in your life.

Failure is something everyone must go through, on the road to success. For some of us, not much failure is involved. For those, it’s easy to forget that failure happened at all. For others, failure is a constant in the back of our minds. But it should never be something that holds us back. No, dear writer, failure should propel you forward into the future.

Into success.

[love]

{Rani Divine}