by Beth Vogt @BethVogt
The word “wrong” can
stop us in our tracks, can’t it?
In Your Words: How are you
living a creative life? What do you do to lose your fear of being wrong?
TWEETABLE
Living the #creative life often means we must 'lose the fear' - @BethVogt (Click to Tweet)
Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” A women's fiction novelist with Tyndale House Publishers, Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner, as well as a 2016 ACFW Carol Award Winner and a 2015 RITA® finalist. In 2016, she continued her destination wedding series published by Howard Books with You Can’t Hurry Love (May) and Almost Like Being in Love (June). Visit Beth at bethvogt.com.
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| "To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." ~Joseph Chilton Pearce |
String “wrong”
together with the words “You are” or “You could be” — and well, that forms a
major roadblock to forward motion … and to creativity.
In our pursuit of
creativity, we are going to get it wrong. We’ll find ourselves staring at
a dead end … or discover that the oh-so-alluring rabbit trail leads straight to
a ditch full of muddy water. We’ll pour our time, our effort, our talent — and
yes, our money — into pursuing our dreams — and despit all our hard work, we’ll
fail.
Now what?
Well, now we try
again. We tear the word “failure” off our efforts and figure out a way
to re-envision the dream. To recreate it. To be brave again.
Being creative — has
it scared me at times? Oh, yeah. But it has also expanded my life, my heart, in
ways I never imagined. My prayer has become “More, Lord” — not
in a selfish “gimme more” kind of way. No. “More, Lord” in a
“make me more brave, make me more creative” kind of way. “More, Lord” in a
“help me lose the fear and dream things, do things I never imagined” kind of
way.
TWEETABLE
Living the #creative life often means we must 'lose the fear' - @BethVogt (Click to Tweet)
Beth, Thank you for this encouraging post. I think of Thomas Edison when he spoke about creating the light bulb, "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." To lose my fear I keep my writing to myself until I'm comfortable enough to show it to my best friend. She is honest, if she likes it I know others will. Have a blessed weekend.
ReplyDeleteLove this post. Thank you. ❤️
ReplyDeleteLinda Lee: I'm glad this post encouraged you. Encouragement from others has made a huge difference to me in my writing life.
DeleteCherrilynn: I agree that having a proper perspective on failure helps us get over fear. And it also helps to have a security net of trusted friends, too.
ReplyDeleteLearning to be wrong and experience failure, is turning out to be more of the process than I realized. :)
ReplyDeleteJennifer: I have to agree with you. I think we all hope that we can skip over the failure part of the process ... or at least avoid as much of it as possible. But that hasn't been the case for me, or anyone else I know. It's more a matter of what the failure looks like -- and when it happens. Oh yes, and how I respond to it.
ReplyDeleteI love being wrong. At least it shows I tried.
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing this. I've been using my niece's acronym for fail - First Attempt In Learning
ReplyDeleteBeing wrong no longer bothers me because it is a starting point for changing something to be better.