Balancing Real-Life with Writing-Life

Forgiveness is key to having monumental goals.

There are going to be days when a person with goals shoots for the moon and hits a thousand stars along the way. They will be on fire! Fueled by passion and success.

Then there will be days when the kids run their bikes into one another, and you are scrapping kids off of the pavement, wiping tears, bandaging boo-boos, and separating siblings to prevent further fighting. If it’s not kids pulling you a million ways from Sunday then it is work and their inflated ideals of what an employee should accomplish not only during work but after, before, and all along the way.

Setting goals that defy the norm means that there will be days when real-life takes over and demands your love and care. This is not failure. It is reality. If we set our goals as more important than real-life we are wildly out of balance and will find that there is little left for us to do but fail without ever succeeding.

Often I tell my students that failure paves the pathway to success. It isn’t avoiding failure that makes a successful person, it’s the one that thrives in the pain, the heart ache, the torment of failure who ends up successful. It’s the person that consistently cannot tick off that they’ve accomplished their goal, but who still gets up and tries again and again.

Here’s a well kept secret. Inching your way to the finish line, or slamming across it instantly yields the same result. Success! So stop judging your path, stop finding failure as a negative, and start allowing the journey to bring you joy.

Jennifer Lynn