"Success is stumbling from failure to failure 

with no loss of enthusiasm."

~ Winston Churchill

When I was a kid, I used to love doing connect-the-dot puzzles . . . except for when I failed and the picture ended up looking more like my knotted shoelaces than a cute puppy playing with a ball. No worries, though. I'd simply rip out the page and pretend that picture never existed, then go on to mess up the next page. It made for a pretty tattered book by the time I finished, but I loved every minute of it.

I haven't sat down with a puzzle like that in decades, but I don't need to. Life is a series of connect-the-dots, which is sometimes hard because the stupid little dots don't have numbers by them. As a result, failure is easy, especially for a writer. There are a bajillion different ways writers face defeat:

- a plot wrinkle that won't iron out

- a character arc falls flat

- you can't land an agent, editor, contract

- one-star reviews

- a self-esteem the size of a sesame seed

But whether you're a writer, a mom, a business exec, or a llama farmer in Wyoming, failure isn't a matter of if. It's when. You will fail and you will fail hard. It's part of the human condition. The question is how will you handle it when you fail? Decide now. Go ahead. Take a minute if you need to. I'll still be here.

It's an emotional thing to not succeed at something that's important to you, but I propose that the emotion doesn't have to be despair. Flip that coin over to determination. Eventually you'll figure out what works and what doesn't, and the payoff will be fantastic: deep satisfaction.