Before I get into the meat and potatoes of today’s post, there are two bit of housekeeping I need to do:
- Next Friday, January 19th, (One day after the latest Five-Thing Thursday post goes live) I’ll be at ConFusion for the weekend. There will be panels, and readings, and genre fiction fans of all ages. If you’re in the area, stop by, it’ll be a good time.
- Both Crimson Whisper and Grease Monkeys (the anthology where Stormspike found a home)are in the running for Best Horror Novella and Best Anthology respectively at the Critters Online Writers Workshop Readers Poll! Here is the link to vote for Crimson Whisper, and here is the link to vote for Grease Monkeys. If you’d head on over there and vote for them, I’d take it as a kindness. Voting Ends January 14th, so don’t miss out.
On with the Post:
Today is January 14th. Statistically, there are some of you who have already veered off the plans you’d made (if you’d made any) at the beginning of the year. You are not alone. Additionally there is an even greater, statistical, percentage of you that are not, in fact, machines. You are also not alone in that as well.
One thing that I keep having to remind myself of is that there is a gradient of performance that comes with every goal that takes any kind of work. More importantly, I need to be better at keeping in mind that there WILL be variation in my position on that gradient. All of that is to say that Failure is coming for us all. Even the machines. I say Failure because we have a tendency to view anything less than perfection as failure. All or nothing has been ground into us by society and its sense of misplaced exceptionalism.
That’s not right, and I’m glad to say that it’s gradually starting to change.
Failure isn’t bad. That’s where the learning takes place. Failure, when it happens, is something to be embraced and learned from.
Equally as important, is that you Start Again.
A single setback shouldn’t signify defeat. Get back up, dust yourself off, reflect on what happened and take steps to prevent it from happening again and get back on that horse.
That last bit is CRUCIAL. Be persistent in your pursuits. Any progress is better than no progress at all.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
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