This is a guest blog post from our friend Blaine Hogan, creative director at Willow Creek.

WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU TO FAIL

"The person who doesn’t make mistakes, is unlikely to make anything." - Paul Arden

Please, for the love of everything that is good, make mistakes.

I know so many people these days that that seem unwilling to step out and try something new for fear of making a mistake. While they are incredibly good at what they do, they just can’t seem to step into the unknown.

Their fears range from being found out as a complete and utter fraud, to being laughed out of their given profession, to simply feeling unsafe.

All are totally valid feelings. And yet, they must be fought. While these feelings are deeply true, they are your resistance, and it is this very resistance that is keeping us from hearing your beautiful voice.

You have a story to tell us that only you can tell. You have a story that we must hear. But we will only hear it if you fight.

Friend, I beg of you, please try. Make something. Make something awful. Make something spectacularly bad. Make the most terrible (fill in the blank) ever seen on the planet.  Then, show it to everyone you know.

Now, take a deep breath. You’re okay. You’re still here. Turns out you weren’t blown to smithereens like you thought. Certainly you might be bruised. The fight is not without pain, after all.

And yet those failures aren’t merely painful. Like Bayles & Orland say, they are absolutely essential. It is only through your failures that you will begin to find the sweet, and lovely, and rich, and treacherous path towards telling that story that only you can tell.

"The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential." - Art & Fear, by Bayles/Orland

So, make mistakes. Please. Then make some more. We’re desperately waiting.