I wanted to cover some of the failures I have endured during the year. It’s not something you read a lot about from people and its important to talk about failure(s). I tend to mention my success’ but its also relevant to realise that there have been a number of failures in 2019.

I sat a number of Azure exams last year and failed on more than one occasion. I learned from this that no matter how much you study and put in you wont always have a successful outcome.

I wrote numerous blog posts which were sitting in my drafts folder for a long time which will never see the light of day.

I recorded umpteen videos which I never released and I still have them on my laptop, which again will never see the light of day.

I created PowerPoint presentations which yep you guessed it wont ever be used for talks.

I started numerous books and never finished a single book, was asked to review 3 or 4 books and again didn’t get the job done.

At times throughout the year I spread myself too thin and was trying to do too much, end result was the above.

Everyone has failure’s its part of becoming a better version of you.

As I reflect on this past 12 months its clear to me that failure is a good thing. Failure has taught me that each time I fail I learn something about myself which is key if you want to improve yourself.

Commitment
I have spent the last 2 years investing in myself, I commit myself to learning new skills and gain knowledge, with this comes failure, failure in my eyes means I am doing. It’s easy to say you want to do this or that but if your not actively doing something about it then it wont ever become a reality.

I have never given up after failing an exam or throwing away a presentation or a video, I use it to motivate myself to do better then next time, I keep the content as reminders.

The trick for me is to have goals, I write my goals on a piece of paper and have that pinned above my computer monitors on the wall. Last year I failed in only one goal and then this year I knocked it out the park, I kept the paper there until I had achieved that goal and now its been replaced with a new set of goals.

Stop holding yourself back
I stopped holding myself back, I used to think I’d love to do x or do y but I never truly thought I had anything to offer.
I spoke to some people at conferences who weren’t blogging but were right into tech and I suggested they should start, I wanted to say stop holding yourself back and just do it, they know they’re stuff and weren’t sure why they hadn’t been blogging.

I watched people speak at user groups and conferences and I thought wow I’d love to do that, I did nothing about it, I was holding myself back, scared I would make a fool of myself, I might still, but I am going to be going after it and see where it takes me.

Everyone has failures, you don’t hear about them, stop holding yourself back if that’s you, if your not failing regularly then perhaps your still in your comfort zone.