Failure and success. Both have been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve been in a funk with my writing, my goals (which are very few) and just my overall life. Last week I did my first party, that was not my own, for the company I am now a consultant for. I was all geared up and excited to get going, and it ended up bombing. Not a single person ordered anything. Epic fail. There are a few reasons why I think this happened, some my fault, some not, but whatever the reasons I was miserable, and, of course, my first reaction was to want to give up. “What am I doing?” I asked myself. “Why did you think you could actually do this?” I had two more parties scheduled in the next week and figured they would be failures as well. I wanted to cancel, to tell the people hosting them I couldn’t do it. Then I found this quote attributed to Winston Churchill. “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Failure is not fatal. I’ve failed at a lot of things in my life, but I’m still here. I’m still fighting, and I’m stronger for everything I’ve been through. I decided to fight back, to continue. I went to my next party and had a blast! I found that my usual social anxiety at talking to strangers quickly evaporated as soon as I started talking about the products, because I love them! I truly believe in them, and that helped me stay happy and positive. I think my passion showed through! And guess what? I got a few orders that night! It wasn’t much, but it was something. I considered it a success.

My next party was a few nights later, and I also had a great time with it. It was just on Facebook. I went live for twenty minutes or so, had a few people join in, and it was great! One person ordered right then and there. I was feeling better, but still not as good as I had hoped. I looked at others who are extremely successful in this business, making a lot of money, and I felt pretty insignificant next to them. Then, just this morning, another person ordered from my party last week—a big order, too! That’s when I realized I just needed to be patient. All of these little things are definitely successes, but success is not final. I still have more to do, a longer ways to go. If I just wait, act and have faith, I can do this! And I can be happy doing it! Success is a rush! But I’m also grateful for what I have learned from failure. Both are important, and both I can live with!