After school Friday, I went to a PD with all the other teachers and staff in the building (for all you non-education people, PD stands for Professional Development), and we talked about the 8 Keys of Excellence.
The 8 Keys of Excellence are a behavior-based program that identifies 8 Keys for conducting oneself in an upright manner. Basically, they are boiled down, repacked, good old fashioned morals and ethics (but you didn't hear it from me). I like the 8 Keys (Integrity, Speak with Good Purpose, This Is It, Commitment, Ownership, Flexibility, Balance, and Failure Leads to Success). They remind the kids of simple things we need to remember when it comes to living life.
Each month we focus on one key, and try as teachers to weave the key into lessons, remind the kids of why each is important, etc. Personally, I think it's an awesome idea, even if not always implemented as well as it could be, and I try to connect the keys to my lessons as much as possible.
Failure Leads to Success is the key for this month. We got together and did Cup Stacking (google it and be appalled at how fast some people can do this), which was meant to illustrate this idea that each time you screw up at it, you are getting closer to being able to do it quickly.
I drove home contemplating this key, mostly because I think it's the key that I have been living most frequently. For those who know me, this might be surprising (or not) since I've been told often that I'm pretty good at keeping myself together, even when I'm coming undone on the inside. Some would consider this a strength. And sometimes, I think it is. Most of the time, however, I think it's a curse. It's pride and stubbornness most of the time that drive me to tuck it all in, prove I can handle it, make sure that no one knows the depth of the struggle going on in my heart and mind.
And often it's the small failures in life that send me churning. As a second year teacher, I am pretty sure I fail almost on a daily basis on some level at teaching. With one full year under my belt, I am certainly learning and fixing things, so I fail less at some things, but then there are whole new categories of things to make mistakes in. And I do. There are a lot of days I go home wondering if I handled that kid's situation right, if I said to much and sounded like an idiot at lunch, if I am being aware enough to be savvy but not paranoid when it comes to building politics.
And then there are times when I outright know I failed. There's no question about it. I jumped down that kid's throat when I should have listened first, I was impatient when I could have slowed down. Generally, when I fail in these concrete, recognizable manners, I apologize and do what I can to make it right. Other times I don't get this chance, so the only consolation this perfectionist has is tucking away the knowledge to NOT repeat that course of action.
But I find that failure DOES lead to success, when you choose to let it guide you. In other words, if you resist the fact that you screw up, if you do not choose to self-reflect over it, then you will not be lead to success. In fact, you will just continue to make the same pattern of mistakes.
But what the types of failure that you really have no control over? This is what vexes me.
Many of you that know me know that I've been working on getting a book published for about 3 1/2 years now *sigh*
And what an arduous, painful, long, and boring process it is!
No one told me when I decided I wanted to be a writer of novels and try to get them published that it would probably be a journey that tested my mettle, my nerve, and my confidence.
I have received a lot of rejections along this journey. LOTS. This past summer, I had a literary agent get interested in my work at a writer's conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. This was thrilling, and I have been hungering for time to work on writing ever since, so I could get my work to her, and maybe, just maybe have something happen.
I am sitting here writing today with a profound sense of failure. I'm not sure if this feeling is justified, so I am attempting to not be all melancholy and sad about it, but it's hard to say. It may be the end of the road with this possibility. Or it might not.
But right now, I am having a hard time believing that failure leads to success.
The book The Help was rejected 60 times before someone finally took a chance on the manuscript that would become a New York Times Bestseller and an award-winning movie. I tell myself this when I get down. But let me be honest--it doesn't really help. Today. Maybe four months ago that thought bolstered me, but right now, who cares? I don't. I am still floating in a pile of rejection letters and despair.
Okay, despair is maybe a little strong, but you get my point.
I just sent off an email that enquired about my fate as a writer with this particular possibility I talked about a paragraph ago. And as I tried to be brave and open myself to possibility that this agent might really not want my work anymore, I realized that failure will lead to success in this case.
Why?
Because no matter what her return email says, I have a plan for this manuscript that I am going to follow. And then I will try again. Enough rejections letters have given me a great deal of advice regarding this book, and enough interest to know that I do have an audience. And it's going to happen someday.
Failure is my guide, and it's going to take me all the way to Success if I let it.
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