“Failure is not an option”. This saying was first expressed by Gene Kranz, flight director of Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle missions and later popularised by the Apollo 13 movie (FANTASTIC movie by the way).
Why do I bring this up?
Yesterday I failed to write my 200 crappy words. That’s right. I couldn’t find the time, motivation or discipline to write just 200 CRAP words. I’m not even going to waste your reading time with an excuse.
But you know what? I don’t care.
The way I see it, if I make this little writing project a big deal and if I beat myself up about writing my 200 words per day, it’s going to take all the motivation and enjoyment out of the process. If I made failure a big deal and if I didn’t allow myself the freedom to fail (on occasion) I may not have started this project at all.
And that’s the point I’m trying to make – failure is an option and it’s okay to let yourself fail if this means you’ll sustain your long-term goals and habits. It’s so easy to say we’ll do something every day, fail once or twice and then give up altogether because we feel like we’ve failed. This is a long-term play and failing once or twice is fine if it means I can stay in the game.