“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” ~ Maya Angelou

In the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot of a somewhat unlikely pair: the team of failure and creativity.

You see, I believe failure is necessary for clarifying our creative dreams. 

Let me step back and tell you how I’ve gotten to this place.

I am leading a discussion based on failure in my women’s group this Sunday, so I’ve been diving into what failure really means for me and in the big picture of our culture.

Frankly, to think of failure this week has brought me to a place of humility. I am reminded of what I feel has failed in my life in the past: relationships, business ventures, staying present, trusting myself and my faith, paying a bill on time—the list goes on.

I wonder, can we create, put ourselves out there, raise a family, do our thing every day, and not experience failure?

The deeper truth that keeps coming up for me is this: failure in our life are inevitable.

Knowing that failure is inevitable is not dramatic or a big deal, it’s just plain and simply true.

If failure never happened, we wouldn’t grow and learn and be the fantastically flawed beings that we are right now. 

In other words, failure is just missing the mark of your aim. The important thing to see in failure is that you shot your arrow, you aimed the best you could, you went for what you were desiring.

Tips to get through failure when it appears in your life:

• See failure as a pausing point, as a place to re-evaluate what and why you are doing what you are doing.
• Set up rituals and habits that keep you centered through the pains of failure.
• Ask yourself: if this situation turned out differently, would I make the same choice I am making now?
• See failure as a gift. This gift reminds you that are moving towards your creations, you are in the direction of your dreams, you are living and breathing and experiencing all of life.
• Trust that failure is not the opposite of success—but it’s a necessary ingredient in the cocktail of success and mastery of your life.
• Be an alchemist of the pains of failure: you must first feel failure, and recognize what failure is to you to transform it into golden courage to keep going.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ~ Thomas Edison

Align your failures and lessons learned to the bigger vision of your life. Use this aligned thought to motivate your next creation.

Then, make the next BIG step past failure, and create the life you want with each thought and movement.

I embrace the unlikely pair of failure and creativity, with all it’s ups and downs, with all that I am.

My wish for you is that you embrace all your failures and all of you, today and every day.

May seeing failures as a gift set you free.

Keep aiming towards all of your creative dreams, dear one!