Failure | Goals
I’m ‘Failing’ at My New Year’s Resolutions
And loving it.
Failure is an essential component of success.
Without failure, we would have no lessons, challenges or triumphs. So how does failure apply to New Year’s resolutions? I believe that you should be failing at your goals early on in the new year because failure teaches you what needs to change.
When I first started writing short stories for submission, I didn’t study the craft of short stories enough. I made the assumption that short stories were easier to write than novels or personal essays. But when I faced several rejections, I began to see where I was wrong.
It wasn’t until I began examining short stories in more detail that I saw the gaps in my knowledge. I realized how much harder it is to write within a specific word count, all while presenting a tight plot, compelling characterization and just enough description. This spurred me towards enrolling in a course on writing short stories, where I received constructive feedback. The instructor confirmed for me what I’d suspected all along but had never admitted to myself — that my plotting needed work. So me failing at short stories actually made me a better writer.
And failing at my goals for the new year is making me a better person.
