YOUR FAILURE RESUME

My journey to publishing. This Month: Your Failure Resume

As the new year gets underway, I’m thinking a lot about failure.

But in a good way.

It started when I heard a Jay Shetty podcast about keeping a Failure Resume. Talk about two words that don’t belong together! A resume is a list of our accomplishments. It’s the work we’ve created, the positions we’ve held, the awards and accolades we’ve earned. It’s all the things we’ve done.

But is it?

When I look back over the year, I did so much more than what I would put on a resume. Maybe things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, but I pushed myself and tried things. And I figured out some things--like what doesn’t work.

For me, first attempts are nearly always a failure. I’ve got to believe that’s true for most of us. Which, when you think about it, means we’re all pretty impressive people. We know a first attempt is likely to fail and we still do it. We push ourselves out of our comfort zone…we learn something new…try things a different way. It’s not just a work thing. It’s a life thing. Attempting to learn guitar. Bake a souffle. Play pickleball. Run a marathon. Write a book.

Every time we fail, it’s because we’ve made an attempt.

That feels like something worth celebrating.

So, I looked back over 2025 and made my Success Resume and Failure Resume.

SUCCESS RESUME:
•I started this newsletter and kept it up for a full year.
•I’ve shepherded two books towards publishing.
•I went on an overnight backpack/camping trip for the first time in 30 years.
•I went to Japan and tried the fish with eyeballs. (But no eyeballs.)
•I competed in two partner golf tournaments and won money in both.
•I joined a daily writing accountability group and stuck with it.
•I wrote a new middle grade manuscript and three picture book manuscripts.

FAILURE RESUME:
•I submitted a new picture book to an editor at a publishing house. They never even responded.
•My agent submitted two different picture book manuscripts to 10 editors. I got 10 rejections.
•I parted ways with my agent in December so I’m unagented again.
•I pitched myself to teach workshops for a conference. I wasn’t selected.
•I started a daily journal. I lasted two months.
•I resolved to read the classics. I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and gave up.

I know I’m missing things. (Guess I should have kept up with that journaling.) But the cool part of documenting things here is that it reminds me I really was productive.

How about you? What things do you consider failures that are actually successes of effort? Or simply the first step in the success to come?

I don’t know what 2026 will bring. I hope many successes for all of us. And a new appreciation for our failures.

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