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When Failure is a Gift
I wanted, for many many years, to be a mystery writer. Finally I
wrote a mystery novel. I got a best-selling novelist to be my
mentor and help me with the rewrite. I got an agent. They sent
the book out. And sent it out. And sent it out. And it went
nowhere.
I tried writing another book, and my mentor told me to dump it
and start a third book. I did, but couldn’t get into the idea
and the book never materialized.
Which is all okay, because today I’m a life coach, something
I’ve wanted to do for a long time and which allows me time to
write if I want to, and I never would have gotten here if that
book had been published.
You see, I can write part-time while I coach as a profession,
but if that first book had been published, I would have seen
myself as a mystery writer and nothing else. That’s the mindset
I had at the time—“I’m going to be a mystery writer full-time.”
Now, having failed at something important to me, I realize that
I don’t have to do only one thing. I don’t even have to do
anything for the rest of my life. I may coach for five years and
say, “I’m done.”
What my failure as a mystery writer taught me is that I have
choices about what I do, and I’m never locked into any one
thing. That was a gift I could never pay for or find anywhere
else.
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