"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." –T.Edison
Failings are a natural part of life for those who try anything. If you are willing to try something then consequently you must be willing to fail. I think we learn…or we can learn…just as much from our failures as we can from our successes.
So, with that in mind, I bring you an abridged look at some of my failures; why I failed and what I learned from the failures.
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I have failed as a writer…
Now hold on, I don’t mean everything I have ever written is worthless; however, I have written some pretty bad stuff. Why? The main culprit was a lack of passion and persistence. I was more concerned with just putting something up on my blog than with actually providing decent, mind provoking content worthy of The Discourse.
There would be days when I just had writer’s block or would get behind on my writing so I would rush to write something without actually putting much thought or effort into it. It would result in a lackluster post that lacked the spirit and vigor I owe to you and to myself.
I learned the hard way that a successful blog is not measured quantitatively. Do I like getting new readers and seeing high numbers and having lots of content? Of course I do, but I cannot ever make numbers my goal.
Instead I now measure my blog by two rubrics: Firstly, is the content worthy to be read, pondered and discussed; secondly, am I truly passionate about what I am writing about?
Numbers flow out of a healthy, passion-filled, well written blog. If I concentrate on writing passionately on topics I truly care about, the readers will come. If I concentrate on just getting high numbers…the readers will flee.
A good rule of thumb for me is to ponder the following: If I was not the author of this post and didn’t know the person who wrote it…would I still want to read it? If the answer is a no or even a hesitant yes…I scrap the post and start from scratch.
Let’s be honest, if I don’t even want to read it…there is no way anyone else would want to read it either. Join me next time for Epic Fail-Part Two: I have failed as a manager/employee.
