This post is not about succeeding at task 13 on my list. Instead, it's about failure.
This week's challenge was to learn 10 cocktail recipes. As you can guess, I didn't manage to do it and to be honest I spent most of the weekend pissed off at myself in the knowledge that I probably wouldn't get around to ticking another thing off my list of 52.
The thing is last week was a pretty damn busy one. It's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks in fact and by Friday I was fit to drop... physically and mentally drained. Sometimes you only realise you're running on empty when you stop and come up for air. Failure is tough for a lot of people to deal with. Some embrace it while others get consumed by it. This week I let it hang around like an unwelcome guest. I let the prospect of failure effect the colour and complexion of my entire weekend.
Only on reflection (and writing this while drinking a coffee and getting weird looks on the Salthill Prom!) am I realising that my task for Week 13 is probably the only thing that I didn't get done the past week that I'd set out to do. On reflection I got a hell of a lot done, had a brilliant weekend and managed to catch up with some of my favourite people in this world, many of whom I hadn't seen in a long long time and are the type of people that make you feel infinitely better from just spending some time in their company.
I'm lucky to have some incredibly inspiring and talented people in my life who are doing amazing things, personally and professionally, on a daily basis. Like us all, they fail sometimes but they also get up, dust themselves off and go again. I know my failure this week is a minor thing and it means nothing to anyone but myself but we all need to cut ourselves some slack at times and appreciate what we HAVE achieved and, if faced with failure, dust ourselves off and go again.
I'll get around to learning my 10 cocktails... just not this week! :-)
