3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge: Day 2, Failure

Quotes about success have been catching my attention lately. I think it’s due to the place I’m at in my life right now. I’m in my mid-twenties and still in the early stages of my career. In the same token, I feel like I’m also starting to take my writing more seriously.

But amidst all successes and triumphs is failure. Failure is often seen as something bad and something to be avoided but some people have a different viewpoint on it. In my experience, failure is part of the recipe for success. It prepares you for the future.

This post is part of the 3 Quotes, 3 Days Challenge. For this challenge, you choose 3 quotes for 3 days and nominate 3 bloggers everyday to do the same. Here is my quote for today:

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.” -Colin Powell 

When you’re looking above at successful people from down below, you’re in awe of all they’ve accomplished and wonder how you could ever come close. These heroes may be writers, actors, musicians, scientists, CEOs, activists or people you know personally in your own life. There’s a lot of people I admire for their talent and success but then I wonder how I’ll ever achieve that same kind of success. When I do this, I have to remember to take a step back for a moment and put things into perspective.

I have to remind myself that I’m still young and I’m still learning. That life is a journey with interesting twists and turns. That you have to learn from your mistakes.

The secret to success is not an easy formula. You have to prepare, work hard and learn from your failures. If anything, failure has made me wiser. When I was rushed and uneasy on my way to appointments, I finally learned how to prepare for those days so that I was calm and had lots of time to get to where I needed to be instead of being panicked.

When I fell short of winning NaNoWriMo for those first few years, I learned how to be practical and intentional in my writing. This past year, I knew that in order to write almost 2,000 words a day that I’d have to train myself to write at least 500-1,000 words everyday, just as if I were training for a running marathon. Writing is like a muscle and with muscles, you have to build up your strength and endurance.

In these situations, you learn through trial-and-error what doesn’t work for you and what does work for you. You learn to recognize the pitfalls and weaknesses, instead using your strengths to do the best job possible.

Failure can be a tough pill to swallow –but once you do, you learn to forget your pride and look at failure from a different angle. You see that it might have actually been a blessing in disguise and something that taught you a very important lesson. Society teaches us early on that mistakes are bad but I think they’re a very important part of growing and learning. I’ve learned to look at failure as a friend who shares tough love with you, pushing you to be better.

Here are the 3 fellow bloggers I nominate for today:

• The Glass Bangle: This blog is about daily life and about being a woman. In the posts, everyday occurrences are brought to life with a nice dash of humour, vivid description and great storytelling. Be sure to check it out to be enraptured and entertained!
• Inked Thoughts and Midnight Monologues: This is another blog with amazing writing: it’s poetic and flows as smoothly as water. This blogger enjoys music, literature, photography and travel. There’s a nice blend of poems, musings and beautiful travel photography. Check out this blog, especially the post on Amritsar!
• The Caffeinated Writer: Danielle has a Bachelor’s degree in English/Creative Writing and currently works at a library. She enjoys reading, writing and screenwriting as well. Danielle also loves coffee, so much so that she is a self-proclaimed coffee addict, hence the awesome blog name 🙂 There are book reviews, updates on works in progress (WIPs), poems and musings. Check out her blog and her WIPs!