Writers (and everyone): Let Yourself Fail

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

Jack Canfield

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One of the hardest things for writers to do is to let themselves fail. Why would you write anything knowing it would be a flop? Why do anything if it won’t succeed – if it won’t meet your standards of perfection? Why let yourself fail?

Well… why not?

Failing it is a universal dislike, hardly exclusive to writers. No one likes it, or wants to fail. But why do we hate it? Mistakes annoy and embarrass us. But why? Why does failure so often embarrass us, when it’s such an innate part of life, when, as inevitable as gravity, we fail at things before we get better?

We may fear being a disappointment, being anything less than, or that nothing satisfactory will ever be produced. It’s understandable. And I encourage you to ask yourself, why do you fear failure? (On a slightly unrelated note, that would be a great question to ask your characters too… it reveals so much about their backstory, personality, and motivations. Back to the rant…)

Fear of failure is understandable. But let’s do away with it.

Writing is so trial-and-error. At the end of the day, you have to explore and experiment until you find your own rules, your own style, your own niche. 

Let yourself let go of the fear of failure. Let yourself learn from mistakes. Use failure as a means of progress. It’s only going to make you better in the end.

Write bravely. Whatever jagged marks your pen inks into paper, whatever jumbled mess of words blink at you from your screen, they all are what will, in the end, make your skills stronger. Perfection stunts growth. Failure feeds growth.

No, I’m not saying perfection is bad – far from it; but in this broken world, true and complete perfection can never be attained and kept, so striving after it obsessively will gave you nothing. You may relate with me when I say I’ve even had experiences where success with one story made me fearful to write another in case it won’t measure up and be as good. But failure… oh, nagging failure has the power to push me on and keep me writing. Because I know I don’t have to stay stuck where I am. I can do better.

So what I do not mean to say is that you ought to let yourself stay stuck in a stagnant rut of failures, repeating your mistakes robotically, never raising your head to the sky to discover more possibilities, or experiment with different methods, or learn new techniques. What I do not mean to say is that you stick with the same useless method. Try, try, try again doesn’t work if the tools you use to try are useless!

That can kill growth even quicker than perfectionism.

What I am saying is to embrace failure by letting it grow you. You have a wonderful future ahead of you, and it won’t arrive any quicker if you simply allow failure to rule over you. Use it! It’s just a part of life – and not only a part of life, but a part of success. How can you grow if you don’t make mistakes?

You may as well come to terms with the fact that YOU WILL FAIL. I WILL FAIL. WE WILL FAIL. And that’s alright! Since we will fail, why don’t we accept that and use it to our advantage by letting it grow us and push us onward.

So don’t let yourself fear failure. Let yourself fail. Then learn from it.

(Featured image via Pexels)