Dealing with failure.

Signs of Spring.

Success and failure tend to go hand in hand. Here in the UK the news has been full of what the Chelsea manager Jose Mouriniho said about the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. In short Mouriniho accused Wenger of being a specialist in failure because he hasn't won a trophy for nine years.
But despite his lack of trophies Wenger has been a success at Arsenal qualifying for the Champions League more often than not. As a supporter of the mighty Norwich City I can only dream of such things. I'm just glad that we are in the Premiership. It is all a matter of perspective.

As a writer at the beginning of my career I am learning to celebrate my small successes. I am ridiculously pleased that a handful of people actually read this blog. (unless of course the google stats are lying.) I am also getting used to failure.
Failure hurts its not a very nice feeling. Recently I have had a couple of failures I submitted a short story to a magazine and it was rejected. A wholly predictable response seeing as it was one of the first short stories I have ever written but disappointing none the less.
My second failure hurts more, I recently applied for promotion in my day job. I didn't get the job because I messed up the interview. My brain froze and my answers to the questions answered weren't logically coherent. Not great. This has forced me to examine one of my main assumptions about myself. That I am good at interviews.

It turns out I'm not good at interviews. I'm not sure if this is a recent post children thing or something that has always been the case. I hope that this is another effect of 'baby brain'. Not that it matters much as either way I need to improve my interview technique so that my brain doesn't freeze again. 

This won't be the last time I have a story rejected or fail an interview but all I can do is keep trying. If I give up on writing or striving for excellence then I will truly have failed. In life we are used to the cycle of the seasons summer to autumn to winter and finally to spring. The winter gives us time to ponder the lessons of the spring and work on solutions to problems that arise. I have time right now to perfect my writing craft and learn from the lessons that need to be learnt from my failures.

What lessons have you learnt from failure or setbacks?