A Little MS with a Little MSW

Have you ever been told not to set the bar too high when setting personal or professional goals? Well, I think that’s hogwash. It’s been proven – over and over again – that failure precludes success. The possibility exists that your end goal will never come to pass. Ok. And? Make peace with that, and then push it down into the dark recesses of your back pocket.

Failure does not have to be our excuse to settle. Failure can hold a wide open space for us to reflect, regroup, and evolve. The proverbial road does not have to be the metaphor conjured in our mind’s eye when envisioning our path. Maybe, if we take a bird’s eye view, our human experience looks more like a maze. Or maybe it is better likened to a dense forest. Sometimes, the emotional landscape is mountainous and curvy; others, we experience the sweet relief of a warm ocean breeze.

At the beginning of this month, I set a goal to blog every day in November in celebration of my gift of the written word. I failed. Miserably. I could dwell on that. Or I could celebrate that I managed to triple my average number of monthly posts with a week left to go! I choose the latter. I fell short of my original goal – yes- but I achieved the ultimate goal: to exercise the little writer in me.

The little writer in me sees the squelched talent in you. Failure talks a good game. It is a master intimidator. We all succumb to what Failure tells us about ourselves at times. But I am here to tell you that Failure is a liar. I wholeheartedly believe that if you can dream it, you can be it. To hell with Failure’s exertion to the contrary. Rest, lick your wounds, learn from your mistakes – do whatever you have to do when you are a guest in the house of Failure – then step back out into your maze, your forest – or perhaps – your warm ocean breeze…