Forward We Go
"If you get up one more time than you fall, you will make it through." - Chinese Proverb
This Monday morning as we each head out into the week with one extra hour - yes, it is time to fall forward! Last week I wrote an article for the November Victory Woman Magazine (coming to your online newsstand this week) entitled Fail Forward. A twist of words reminding us that when we fall down and scrap our knees the important thing to remember is to get up! To try and try again if that is required, to indeed get that forward momentum happening as we see past out downfall(s).
About a year ago I submitted a manuscript to a New York publishing house. It was rejected with a letter that told me it wasn't what they said they were looking for at that time. Their initial interest had turned to non-interest and of course, it was very disappointing. Over the course of this year it hit me to not throw out the baby with the bath water, but to do some rewrites of what I had originally written - to make my original idea stronger, meatier.
So I set out and over the course of the past three months to do the major rewrites on the book - not giving up the faith that the core of the book was good. Now this required many, many hours of working on something that only my faith and hope in what was possible was my fuel to move and guide me forward. Making what some would have considered a failure, to giving it a new life of what it was destined to become.
The result - last week after resubmitting my rewritten manuscript I was contacted by the publishing house, they now want to publish the book! Exciting indeed - giving me even more faith that I need to follow my heart and not let perceived failures ever stop me from moving, failing, forward.
This month in the Victory Circles we are focusing on the Master Mind principle of profiting from failure. Failure is something that we have all experienced in one form or another. Some failures are huge while others are minor, and some simply come from never even putting our dreams to the test. Of quitting before we even get our foot out of the door. As the saying goes, it is better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all, simply because to never try is perhaps the worse kind of failure. Not giving our full potential the shot it really needs.
For me, there is now the work ahead to make sure this publishing house is the one I want to go with and then what I will do to get my book out there and marketed. Plenty of room for failure but a risk and challenge that I am ready to go after!
As you move forward into your week and month ahead look at the failures you have accomplished along your way. The things you have done that required you to put yourself self out there, placing your neck on the line.
I invite you in the week ahead to look forward to what you have to contribute - to be grateful for what you do have in your life - right now, today. To remember it is about what we give that results in what we get - even to ourselves.
