Monday Musings | Accepting Failure in the Pursuit of Making Things Happen

I’ve always been a dreamer. A thinker of impossible thoughts. A hopeful little girl that could spend hours in my own imagination, simply wandering the pathways of my mind. And thankfully as I have gotten older, I’ve also developed a knack for  making things happen. Or at least surrounding myself with other people who inspire and encourage me to turn my dreams into realities.

Two years ago, I had an idea to launch an Annapolis Wedding Blog with a talented graphic designer and budding photographer, Krista Jones. So without reservation, we put our hearts and souls into Bayside Bride, crafting it into a brand that we’re incredibly proud to be a part of.

Days and nights were spent crowded around my computers, learning what it takes to make a blog grow successfully. All while finishing my degree at Penn, running a photography business, and attempting to maintain some tiny piece of a social life! My poor husband must have thought I was crazy, starting something as daunting and unfamiliar as a wedding blog. And in a lot of ways… I was crazy!

But that crazy idea led to so many incredible opportunities and relationships that I never could have imagined. Launching Bayside Bride taught me that if you have a goal in life, you need to go out and make it happen. You can’t sit back and watch someone else chase after your dream. Nothing good will ever come of that.

Making things happen (especially big, scary, overwhelming things) isn’t easy. It takes a lot of courage and an incredible amount of passion to go after what you want in life. It takes even more courage to get back up and try again when those big, scary, overwhelming goals of yours come crashing down… and you’re presented with the scariest realization of all – You’ve failed.

Failure. It’s a terrifying word isn’t it? A stomach-churning thought.

It seems that far too often we compare our ‘behind the scenes’ to someone else’s ‘highlight reel’. (You’ve all heard this analogy!) We fail to recognize the sleepless nights, the unending work, and the struggles that someone else has overcome in their pursuit of happiness. We simply look down at our trembling hands and yet another empty cup of coffee, wondering why that person seems to have it all.

Far too often we allow comparison, jealousy, and fear crowd out the spaces of our minds where possibility could have flourished. We spend too much time focussing on the negative, that we fail to see all of the potential that is sitting right in front of us.

I’ve failed more times than I’ve succeeded… any business owner or entrepreneur has a similar story to tell. When I was in college, a professor once told us that the most successful people in life are actually the ones who have faced the most hardship and failed the greatest number of times. Those individuals, who dust themselves off, improve their ideas, and emerge stronger than they were before – are the ones that will eventually make it to the top. They are relentless. They are unstoppable.

Instead of accepting failure to be the end, they see it as a new beginning. They stand back up, look at themselves in the mirror, and fight on.