Please enable javascript, or click here to visit my ecommerce web site powered by Shopify.

Friday, November 9, 2012

tips for writers, bloggers, business, life -- volume 2



This is a continuation of a series I started a few weeks back – tips for bloggers, writers, and business ladies. You can find them here.

Truth be told, this is much, much more than a writing, blogging or business principle for me. It’s a life principle. A spiritual one, even. I find the kind of people I relate to the best – the kinds I want to learn from the most are the ones who aren’t scared to look back and say, “That didn’t go well, huh?”

In life, I’ve learned that I’m seriously missing out on growth, on learning, on living out God’s lavish grace if I can’t look backward and simply know – I made a mistake. On the other hand, if I’m so utterly cautious that I refuse to try things that I might not do a good job at, I will miss out on all kinds of adventures. Even failed adventures are adventures, you know?

In writing – sometimes you gotta just write. Tell the story. Try and explain the deep thoughts even if you think know one will follow them. Describe the setting. Maybe it’s not long enough and maybe it’s too long. Maybe everyone reads it and maybe no one does. You might spell all the words wrong or never get to the point or lose your readers in the first paragraph. But you did it and then you can look back and say – “here’s what. I should have done _______________ instead.”

In business and ministry – if you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying enough things. If you keep your area of expertise so small that you always stay an expert at it – good job, you’ve limited yourself to what YOU can do and possibly missed out on the vast opportunities of what God could have done through you. In His power and ability, instead of yours.

Let’s don’t be ladies who are so tidy and buttoned up that we don’t let God’s grace get it’s full story told. Love hard. Mess up. Apologize. If you have a pit in your stomach about something you said or did a month ago or a day ago that you’re explaining away with “it was a miscommunication” or “I guess I could have done that differently”, run from that. Call it what it was. A mistake. Learn from it. Grow from it. Say you’re sorry and walk in grace.

For me, this looks like pulling a kid aside after a rough day and saying, “I took my frustration out on you. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” It looks like quitting doing blog design even though it’s fun and financially profitable. Even emailing my clients and apologizing for not handling their business well. It looks like writing an eBook in 4 days in the midst of my first trimester nausea and instead of walking away from it, refusing to write anything else substantial till I go back and edit it and make those words count.

If you’re sitting safely inside your own human boundaries, break out.
Try. Fail. Redeem. Live. Write. Love. Try. 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

A much needed post today, friend! It reminds me of a saying my Dad would always use: "never can, never could". In other words, you don't know what you're capable of until you try. I'm praying for the courage to step out and try...