Feedback is an essential part of developing your skills as a writer.
Good coaching stems from encouragement. Encouragement to celebrate your successes… encouragement to improve on your skills… and, also, encouragement to embrace failure.
Failure is more than a roadblock…
Often, people describe failure as a roadblock to overcome. If we take that attitude, we’re looking at failure through the wrong prism.
Failure is feedback.
Take my “chosen grandson” Daniel. When he began high school, he was small for his age — 5’3” tall, 88 pounds. Despite his size, Daniel decided to join the high-school wrestling team. This after the fall season of being bounced around on the football team as the smallest player.
He’d never wrestled before.
His 12th-grade practice partner on the team was an outstanding wrestler who’d been wrestling for six years. Daniel never won at practice.
In his first five meets — 15 matches — Daniel wrestled without a single win.
When Daniel would talk to Linda and me about the matches he lost, he’d repeat what he’d heard numerous times from his coach.
“It’s not about winning, at this point. It’s about learning how to get better.”
His coach would also spend a few minutes with Daniel after every match pointing out what he’d done wrong, what he could’ve done better, and what he’d done correctly.
Feedback.
In his sixth meet, Daniel got his first win.
You think being asked to revise your writing is hard…
One of the things I love to do is volunteer with our elementary school’s 6th- through 8th-grade classes.
Recently, the 8th-grade Language Arts teacher asked me to help five students revise their essays for a countywide contest.
These five essays had been picked by their classmates as being the best. So, the students felt pretty good about their writing.
When I spoke with each student at first, I talked about the importance of revising to make their writing better. Trust me, I was gentle with them, as we went through the necessary revisions.
The students said they understood the importance of revision. But I could tell each thought their essay was nearly perfect the way it was. I had to chuckle inwardly, as I watched each of them while we worked our way through their essays.
We talked about buried leads, effective verbs, and writing clearly so the reader understands. Exactly the things that make copywriting successful.
Their faces changed after the initial shock, once they could see for themselves the feedback they were getting made their essays stronger.
They even accepted the idea that the first revision was not the last one they would do.
Enthusiasm over the possibility of winning the county contest quickly replaced their initial disappointment at having “failed.”
Feedback.
Feedback that came through my (gentle) coaching.
Embrace failure…
Failure’s not a roadblock unless you let it be.
It’s your opportunity to get feedback. To look more closely at what you’ve done. To grow and improve through experience.
Daniel, Randi, Brandon, Summer, Judy, and Katya all experienced varying degrees of failure. They’ve all grown from it. You can, too.
I always love to hear about your successes. Today, though, I’m asking you to share with us some of your failures and what you learned from them. Tell your story in the comments…
