Blog Post Title One

THE BIG FAIL

The biggest fail this week was getting a rejection to the Chicago Filmmaker’s Workforce Training Program. I had spent hours on my application, hoping to gain acceptance and free training to learn how to be a production assistant on film and television shows. It was really hard to face this rejection, because it felt like finally there was a path and a way to put my foot in the door to working in the film industry… Especially without moving to Hollywood.

My dream since I was four years old was to become a writer. My dream since I was twelve years old was to become a screenwriter. And make all the A.I. jokes you want, it is still my dream and I’m still doing it. I just realized that in order to even be able to hope for eventual success, I need to not just write every day and accept that failure and rejection will be part of the process, I need to SEEK failure and rejection at a much higher frequency in order to put myself on any kind of potential path for opportunity. It is not enough to work on a script, submit it to a couple places, get rejected, and sit for awhile. Then after a few weeks or months, repeat the process. What I have been doing is clearly not enough.

But.

I am enough.

And I am not going to let my fears of looking stupid, being embarrassed, high volumes of rejections, being mortified, having my family/ friends/ family friends thinking I’ve lost my mind, being humiliated, etc. etc. etc. stop me. Because none of those are good enough reasons to not put myself in the arena again and again and again at rapid frequency and high counts in order to learn from my failures, connect with others, and keep growing as a writer and a person.

So it’s okay that I got rejected. It sucks. But I will learn from it and reach out and volunteer and take classes and read books and most of all, put myself out there on the line immediately and many, many more times right away. The goal is not the typical, narrow version of success. The goal is to become so accustomed to failure that it no longer is terrifying/ embarrassing and I no longer feel like I have to reach some vague, out-in-the-distance level of expertise and “acceptance” before I can write, make stuff, and put my work and myself out into the world.

I’m out as a writer and screenwriter now. I look forward to documenting my many, many more failures and rejections. And if one day I experience any amount of external validation (what’s that like?!), I will have the proof that I was not only strong enough to face failure, but brave enough to seek it.

To more fails next week!

week 2

some observations…

I feel like everything I’ve studied about habit formation, getting over fears, and achieving success are all merging toward this nervous breakdown exciting project (I am borrowing this joke-truth from Dr. Brene Brown’s famous Ted Talk, because it so applies).

We always hear successful people in their fields tout the benefits of failing, their failures having been the best teachers that led them to where they are today. We see the inspirational quotes, listen to the inspirational podcasts, read the inspirational stories, and maybe through all of this we have managed to convince ourselves of the benefits of failing. If failure is so important, why aren’t we all unbreakably focused on trying things that might fail, like, all the time? There are so many reasons, but today I will argue one I’ve been thinking about a lot.

We tell ourselves that one day we might get to where we want to go and be one of those success stories. But today? Today, risking failure is just too hard.

It’s too scary.

Remember the last time that failure thing happened? It felt so, so awful.

We don’t have the energy for that today.

Our family doesn’t have the energy right now to deal with us after that.

Risking failure is so hard on its own, and it’s made extra difficult because of all the temptation to stick to things that people tell us we’re good at doing. Regardless of burnout or feeling stuck in a rut, or harboring a secret dream, the social pressure from our people tells us to keep doing what is safe. Maybe our loved ones are even telling us that we’re needed in continuing to do the thing that is safe. So “safe” and what we’re “good at” is the default mode, and the hard gets pushed aside, forgotten about, or kicked down the road. We can do the big, hairy scary thing that risks failure tomorrow, we tell ourselves. We’re needed today, so we’ll leave the dreaming to the kids— we are responsible adults with obligations to fulfill.

So tomorrow becomes the next day, and the next day becomes next week, next month, next year, and now we’re in a formidable death-grip of a habit of doing what’s safe and avoiding the uncomfortable, of avoiding failure. And we look up at the clock and the calendar and the time that has passed, and look down on what we’ve made of our dreams and our progress, and we really feel like a failure because we never truly reached for the thing that we wanted to do in the first place.

When we do, finally, collect our courage to step out of our pattern of safe inaction—for a moment—and try something… Well? It usually fails, as could have been predicted because we are trying something new and haven’t yet given ourselves enough opportunities to fail and learn and grow into our success. Then often well-intentioned support system will say something like “I’m sorry,” or “maybe it will work out differently next time.” Maybe they’ll even toss out a quote or two on the importance of failing. It’s nice, but we feel their disappointment for us and discomfort from our failing, and it sucks to feel like we’ve disappointed the people we love. So we tried, we tell ourselves, and yes, we’ll try again in the future but right now is the time for licking our wounds and finding comfort in the familiar, so we go back to the safe path and we don’t try again for awhile. And more days and weeks and months and maybe years pass, and the next time we try for something, we feel the weight of our last failure and our few cumulative failures and we walk toward the next opportunity already weighted down to the ground with a heavy heart and the expectation of disappointment. And we fail again, and it feels like we can never get a win.

Ugh. It’s so painful. I’ve been using “we” with the suspicion (or maybe just hope) that I haven’t been alone in this vicious cycle.

Blog Post Title Three

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

Blog Post Title Four

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.