Get The Hell Past It

Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Beth Moore
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not
be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the
express written permission of the publisher except for the use
of brief quotations in a book review.
Publishing services provided by Archangel Ink

To Jackie, who keeps me sane and whom I love.
CONTENTS
PREFACE.................................................................................. 5
Chapter One
DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY, OR: YOU ARE NOT YOUR
FAILURE..................................................................................14
Chapter Two
UNDERSTAND WHY YOU FEEL THIS WAY, OR: YOUR BRAIN IS A
LIAR...................................................................................... 24
Chapter Three
CELEBRATE ROCK BOTTOM, OR: IF THAT SOUNDS SUPER
MESSED UP, THINK AGAIN........................................................37
Chapter Four
FIND THE HIDDEN GEMS, OR: GOLD AMIDST THE ASHES........... 48
Chapter Five
PRACTICE ACCEPTANCE, OR: FEEL WHAT YOU CAN’T HELP BUT
FEEL...................................................................................... 56
Chapter Six
LOOK AT YOUR SUCCESSES, OR: YOU KICK ASS IN SOME WAYS,
AT LEAST............................................................................... 65
Chapter Seven
DON’T WAIT TO TRY AGAIN, OR: YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE
(MAYBE)................................................................................ 70
Chapter Eight
LET GO OF YOUR NEED FOR APPROVAL, OR: WHAT THEY THINK
DOESN’T MATTER................................................................... 80
Chapter Nine
MINIMIZE, OR: DOING LESS MIGHT BE THE ANSWER................. 88
Chapter Ten
KICK ASS & TAKE NAMES, OR: THE FINAL CHAPTER YOU KNOW
AND LOVE.............................................................................. 97
AN EXCERPT FROM GET THE HELL OVER IT: HOW TO LET GO OF

FEAR AND REALIZE YOUR CREATIVE DREAM......................... 100
ABOUT SARAH......................................................................108
PREFACE
If you have a pulse and the IQ of a tomato, at

minimum, you have experienced an unpleasant
little Fact of Life that we all love to hate.
Usually I would make a “and we all hate to love”

quip here, but alas, I cannot. No one hates to love
this or, in fact, loves it in any way whatsoever.
Because the topic at hand is failure. And failure,

plainly put, blows. Fiercely.
Before we go any further, a public service announce-

ment: Please never google “IQ of tomatoes,”
because then you will come across this extremely
confusing but nevertheless strangely enchanting
quiz and you will waste a full four minutes of your
life for absolutely no reason. But hey, if you’re up
for a bit of meaningless fun, go for it. Hint: parsnip.
That’s a hard one.
5
Back to failure, and the panic spirals it frequently
induces faster than you can say “another one bites
the dust.”
Fact is, dreams die. Like, all the time.
Sometimes, that’s no big deal. Your dream to be an

astronaut was probably going to die, no matter what.
As of May 2017, NASA kept only 44 active astronauts
on staff, as well as an additional 36 “management
astronauts,” who are former astronauts who cannot
go into space but still do things. Astronaut-y things.
One assumes.
Other times, it is a big deal. A really big deal. See,

when you become not-an-astronaut, you join the
ranks of millions of other schoolchildren whose
dream to explore the cosmos subtly but realisti-
cally morphed into a desire to keep books, prune
rhododendrons or bear children. There’s little sting
in that, because even you probably never took the
dream too seriously.
But your failed startup? The Etsy shop you were

all set to launch, but didn’t? The novel you wrote
that hasn’t gone anywhere, even though you told
everyone and their pet monkey all about it?
6 GET THE HELL PAST IT

Those failures can sting a lot more. Almost as
much as your PETA fine will sting if you keep a pet
monkey, so don’t do it.
A few other things not to do:
Give up once you fail.
Actually, I guess I just had one thing. Because,

DON’T GIVE UP ONCE YOU FAIL. That’s the
main point of this book, so we might as well start
accepting it right now.
Now, I get it. Watching a cherished dream wither

and die, publicly or otherwise, is painful. It’s
depressing. It’s draining. It saps your desire to try
again, because where will that really go? What if you
fail again? Even the thought of restarting drums up
all sorts of catastrophizing and self-loathing. That
makes sense, because we humans are pain-averse,
and we do not distinguish overmuch between
physical and emotional pain. When something
hurts, we tend to turn away.
More often, we run away. As fast and as far as we

can. Once the failure is in the rearview mirror, it
can’t haunt us anymore, right?
7 SARAH BETH MOORe

Possibly. The question of whether or not you can
actually escape your past is not relevant here (and
the answer is a diamond-hard “no” in any case),
so we won’t spend much time covering it. There’s
another, deeper question on which our time would
be much better spent. That question is: How can
you fail without giving up?
Put another way, how can you deal with your

failures head-on, so that you can get the hell past
them and move on with your life?
This is the crux of this guide.
Failure hurts, I’ll say again. It won’t stop hurting.

People who have millions of dollars still experience
the sting of defeat. Movie stars and presidents fall
prey to inadequacy and the destruction of their
best-laid plans. To err is human, after all. And while
forgiveness is divine and all that, I prefer to focus on
the first part of the saying:
To err is human. It’s normal to fail.
What is not so normal is to pick up and go on.
No one’s saying you have to do the same stupid

thing over and over again when it’s not getting you
anywhere. That’s the definition of insanity, and is,

in any case, probably pretty boring. I am saying
that too many people give up on an endeavor
completely, when what you really need to do is
approach it in another way. Iterate. Change your
thinking. Talk to other people who have failed in
similar ways and are now succeeding.
For the sake of clarity, I will state at the outset that

I am a writer and creative, and that is my main
audience. You, however, do not have to be either.
I welcome, with open arms, anyone who wants to
learn to move past failures in their work life, side
biz, hobby, relationships, health or anything else.
You do not have to have a game-changing idea
for this book to be worth your time. The secret
ingredient is very simple and very ubiquitous (is
“very ubiquitous” redundant?).
The secret ingredient is this:
A desire to stop getting mired in your own misery

every time you let yourself down or something
doesn’t go your way.
As long as that’s your goal, you’re in the right place.

Because life doesn’t go our way a vast percentage of
the time. Even very good lives, filled with good work
and great love, disappoint us. More to the point,
we disappoint ourselves in the living of them, and
9 SARAH BETH MOORe

that makes us lose faith in our own abilities. What
matters is whether the disappointment and lost
faith are temporary or permanent.
By the time you’re done reading this, I want you to

have the tools to look failure squarely in the eye and
say, “You’re not very nice but you don’t scare me.”
Failure doesn’t have much to say to this, you see.

When you acknowledge it, hold your head high and
march forward, it loses its power completely.
Even better, if you can learn to make friends

with your failure, you will discover open doors
everywhere. And unless those doors were supposed
to remain locked because they kept criminals or
scary monsters inside, open doors are a good thing.
So let’s get started.

A note on using this guide:
If you have read the other books in this series, you
will know that I start my prefaces with this tradi-
tional note. Because I think our creative success is
so important, I’ve included lots and lots of resources
in this guide. They come in two forms:
Links.
These are some of my favorite go-tos for inspiration,

knowledge, self-work and more. I don’t include that
many, because I want the ones that I do include to
be meaningful. I highly recommend that you check
them out.
It would be disingenuous not to admit, however,

that I also offer some thoroughly ridiculous
“resources” as well (Please see “IQ of vegetables”
above). I figure, if we can’t laugh about failure and
vegetables, what do we even have in life?
Exercises.
These require (or, if you prefer, invite) your partici-

pation. You can write your answers down on paper,
print out those sheets or, if you have a physical
book, photocopy them (gasp! Yes, people still do it).
It’s up to you. You can also just think through them.
The thought exercises involved are all relatively
11 SARAH BETH MOORe

simple, and more meant to get your creative juices
flowing than to hash out anything specific. So make
it your own.
You’ll notice throughout this book, in fact, that it’s

more a primer on how to think about creativity
than it is a step-by-step guide. I mean, it’s that
too. But mostly, this book is a recognition of how
GOSHDARN HARD it is to make it as a creative,
entrepreneur or self-starting human, and that the
biggest enemy we face is our own thoughts.
This book is all about telling those thoughts to take

a hike.
Immediately.
Before we kill them and turn them into stew.
STEW, I SAY.
And now all that’s left is the disclaimer:
This book is not intended to replace therapy,

friendship, hard work, research, palm-reading,
astrology, personality tests or actual job counseling.
I am not responsible for your career choices (though
if you become a shooting star, I will be first in line
to take credit).

However. You can and should use this ebook to
replace emotional eating, crying in the bathtub
and wine binges. I want you to stop mourning your
failures, learn from them, move on and become the
shiniest star of success you possibly can.
I WANT YOU TO GET THE HELL PAST IT ALL.
It is my considered opinion that your projects and

goals are worthy and viable, but since we’ve never
met, you’ll have to find that out on your own.
Ready?
I know you are. But just in case, I’ll leave you with
the words of young amazeballs poet Erin Hanson:
“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?”
See, you totes feel better now, right? Okay then …
ONWARD!
13 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter One
DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY, OR:
YOU ARE NOT YOUR FAILURE
High on the list of Unenjoyable Experiences is

defeat.
Sadly, it is also high on the list of Things That

Happen Regularly in the Course of a Normal Life.
Bummer, right?
Aside from the death of a loved one or dire trauma

of another kind, failure is one of the worst things
that can happen to us. Whether it’s the miscarriage
of a new business idea, the total panning of your
self-published book or the complete and utter lack
of interest in your homemade jam boutique, pretty
much any sort of deficiency feels really, really lame.
14
Typically, we humans don’t enjoy staking a claim
on something – “I’m going to do it! I’m finally
launching my men’s loungewear line!” – and then
admitting defeat. It makes us feel less-than, as
though there’s something fundamentally wrong
with us.
For a good reason: Failure avoidance is very strong

in humans. Back in caveman (and cavewoman and
inter-gendered caveperson) times, we learned a
very powerful lesson. If you cannot add to the group,
you will not remain part of the group. If your job is
to fish and you suck at fishing, well, you better hope
you show a strong proficiency with flint-knapping
stat.
You get where I’m going with this. Failure avoidance

is rooted very deeply in the human psyche, because
in times of Not Terribly Plenty, there was no room
for freeloaders.
The Boomerang Generation has proved that such

times are well and truly over. Yay college kids in
basements?
Suffice it to say, we have hundreds of thousands

of years of evolutionary biology to thank for our
difficulty in separating ourselves from the things
15 SARAH BETH MOORe

we do poorly. When we fail, we don’t tend to tell
ourselves, “That project was a failure.”
Instead, we tell ourselves, “I am a failure.”
Aside from being a real buzzkill, this is a crippling

thought.
What motivation could a pronounced failure

possibly have to try again? Someone who is, at their
core, a bust has no reason to try. Why would they?
So that they can experience the exquisite pleasure
of disappointment, self-loathing, embarrassment
and public scrutiny all over again? So they can lose
a few thousand more of their savings? So they can
be the laughingstock of the PTA?!
(Sorry. I don’t actually have anything against PTAs.

They’re just usually very snooty and mean in the
movies.)
Conflating oneself with one’s failure is truly debili-

tating, yet we all do it … all the time.
Interlude!
Before we circle back to that thought, let me tell you

about an epic failure of mine.

Mind you, this is just one failure of many. Someday,
if you stick with my books long enough, you’ll hear
alllll about my many degrees, many jobs, many
firings, many Resignations in High Dudgeon, and
more. For now, I thought you might benefit from
this relatively recent and agonizing self-coal-rak-
ing. Grab a blanket. Make some cocoa. Get ready.
In January of 2011, I began a master’s program

in journalism at Northwestern University. It was
awesome, aside from Chicago being cold and
windy as balls (which are neither cold nor windy,
but go with it). Never before had I felt so at home …
in all my academics and job-hopping, I hadn’t yet
come across a community that felt so me. Writers!
Who loved other writers! Who got shit done and
then went home and wrote some more because
they wanted to!
Love.
By the time I graduated, I was on top of the world.

I was so darn high on finally having some street
cred behind my lifelong writing dream that it
didn’t really occur to me that I might have a hard
time finding a job. And at first, I didn’t. I got a great
internship, and from there, a cool job. But that job
17 SARAH BETH MOORe

turned sour, and then I started another gig, which I
also promptly lost.
Turns out being a paid writer is a lot harder than

paying a private institution a king’s ransom to give
you a degree. I wasn’t doing any better than people
who had a college degree, or even half a college
degree. What gives?
I didn’t give up, though. I decided to work from

home while I had children, I made some okay
money and my husband made up the rest. (When I
say “the rest,” I mean “pretty much all of it,” but let’s
skim over that, shall we?) For a year and a half, this
worked well enough – until it didn’t.
I lost an important gig due to a combination of

factors (mostly the client being a huge douche
and me also being a huge douche. Douchery was
definitely at the heart of things). I had another
ongoing gig, but it wasn’t really “for me.” I had better
than that to offer the world, so I turned my nose up
at it. I was going to be a pie-in-the-sky writer or not
at all – and clearly, since I had failed at my attempts
to be a writer, the answer was not at all. This failure
meant I was a failure, and clearly even a master’s in
journalism wasn’t enough to change the non-writ-
erly core of me.

It was an awful time. We were about to have another
baby, I had pneumonia and a broken rib from
coughing so much, and I was sitting on the edge of
the couch sobbing hysterically at my husband, who
was frantically wishing he were anywhere else and
trying to look like he wasn’t wishing it.
Good times… noodle salad. (Google it. Watch it.

Love it. Thank me for changing your life.)
Anyway, if you caught that it was not actually good

times and that there was a noticeable lack of noodle
salad, way to go. Right on both counts.
We decided that I needed to start my design

business, “finally.”
See, I had picked up some pretty good design skills

in school. I could now use Adobe Creative Suite and
could code websites quite well. This, I assumed,
was equivalent to a four-year design degree,
because I am and always have been amazing and
better than anyone else. If anything could make up
for my failure as a writer, it was definitely this new
business idea.
I’ll cut to the chase. It didn’t work out. I got a few

clients and enjoyed the work, but mostly, it was
frustrating. I had a knack, but I wasn’t enthusiastic
19 SARAH BETH MOORe

enough to turn what sounded like a good idea into a
successful venture. When this “business” too failed,
I was completely and utterly lost.
I spent a lot of time that fall wondering what I’d

been thinking. Why had I started this business for
which I had not enough training and not enough
passion? I finally realized that, at the time, it just
seemed easier to start anew than face my failure
as a writer. I figured, if failing at writing made me a
failure, I better avoid writing, period.
This strategy was a poor one. Eventually, I shed it.

I finally returned to writing, and I haven’t looked
back.
I’ve had other flops, of course. So has everyone I

know, and I’ve seen a lot of different responses to
such experiences.
The most impressive are the people who keep

trying no matter what. Year. After year. After year.
No matter how many times they fail.
And the thing I’ve realized about those people is:

They don’t take their failures personally. They do
not translate failing into being failures.

That makes it much easier to stick to the things they
want and achieve them in the end. Because really,
the only ingredient for success is not stopping. If you
can avoid The Big Quit, you’ll get there someday,
no matter where “there” is. This is equally true for
finishing a novel or losing weight, making a living
as an artist or landing that job you want so badly.
Before you do anything else to reach your goals,

though, it’s critical to sit down and make a game
plan for separating yourself from your mistakes.
Because trust me, they’ll happen again. You can
transform your life completely, build the perfect
career and create the perfect life, and failure will
still dog you. It’s the human condition.
Your best bet? To beat your brain at its game, to

refuse its tendency to equate failure with worth-
lessness. Because, boo.
That’s what the exercises are for.
21 SARAH BETH MOORe

EXERCISES
1) Whip out a journal and record a time you
failed hard at something. Be brave and choose
a painful example, or this exercise will be less
effective.
2) Ask yourself: What does this experience tell
me about myself? How did I fail, and why?
3) Write a few sentences about how the failure
made you feel. The more visceral, the better.
4) Now ask: How was this experience separate
from me? What did I take too personally?
Where did I conflate the experience with my
core self?
5) What would I tell a friend struggling through
this experience? Write out a few sentences.
Try to move beyond “You did your best!” or
“You’re still great!” You can go to your mom
for that. Instead, how would you comfort a
friend who had objectively failed, perhaps
not done their best and was not very great
at that moment? Be kind, but honest. We
often confuse head-patting with comfort, but
sometimes honest acknowledgement can be
even more helpful. Ex: “Yeah, your Etsy site
flopped. Most likely you needed to spend

more time on it, but you didn’t because you
don’t really enjoy it. Just because you quit this,
though, doesn’t mean you’re a quitter. It’s not
a streak. What could you do instead that you
already know you enjoy and are good at?”
6) Distill that into a single sentence you could
tell yourself.
7) Put that sentence somewhere: a wallet, a
mirror, a jewelry box. When you need to, pull
it out and read it.
8) Take deep breaths and adjust to the idea that
you are not your failures.
23 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Two
UNDERSTAND WHY YOU FEEL THIS
WAY, OR: YOUR BRAIN IS A LIAR
Your brain does you a lot of favors.
It keeps your heart beating. It helps you stay

motivated when you really, really don’t want to go
to work. It tells you that cheese is delicious, which is
good information to have.
It also performs more deeply rooted emotional

tasks, like falling in love and caring for young who
cannot care for themselves. It helps you recognize
friend from foe, especially important when the
Franks invade. Which, as a peaceful people with a
democratic government and a market economy,
they don’t do anymore. But at one time there were
angry Franks and you did need to recognize when
24
they were coming for you. At that time, it was very
useful to have a brain that said “Scary! Run!”
Today, our knee-jerk emotional responses tend to

be less useful than they were in the Olden Times. If
you are privileged enough to own a device and an
Amazon account, then you likely don’t have to run
from invading warriors that often. Your fight or flight
responses are, as such, rather underutilized. So is
your negativity bias, or the tendency of your brain to
look for the shit in everyday life. Unfortunately, you
don’t actually have less negativity to give, because
evolution is a jerk that way.
This means that you have to find different objects,

events and people to which to attach your negative
feelings.
Back in caveman days, your fear and hate could

associate with enemies or large cats. Your feelings
of failure could hold hands with your inability to kill
the mammal. Which, after all, is pretty lame with an
Ice Age winter coming on. Your innate tendency to
judge constantly was useful for finding herbs and
vegetables, watching for enemies and tracking the
weather.
Now? Not so much.
25 SARAH BETH MOORe

Today, your fear attaches itself to economic
insecurity – even when you have very decent
employment – while you don’t have much to do
with your judgment other than smirk at others on
social media. Your feelings of failure, along the
same lines, play much too large a role.
Think about it: Are you fed? Are you clothed? Are
your loved ones safe?
Then what the hell are you so worried about?
Why does a creative failure make you want to pitch

yourself off a bridge? How come a course correction
seems like the end of the world? Why do 5 extra
pounds feel like a personal shortcoming so deep
you might as well wear a sign around your neck that
reads “I Suck”?
Here’s where it gets interesting.
The brain, you see, is not satisfied with being warm,

full, secure and surrounded by a healthy family.
Sure, that’s great. It’s the cornerstone of a good life,
in fact. Few people would disagree.
Nevertheless, ye olde brain box wants more.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, meeting

your animal needs and feeling safe is just the

beginning. From there, we turn to relationships:
When we don’t have them, we want them. When we
have them, we want them to be strong and intimate.
Social needs checked off? Cool. Time to progress

to esteem. We want to feel accomplished. This is
more than wanting to fit in and do our part with
the fishing or the gathering or the basket-weav-
ing (although surely it is related). More than that,
though, we want to feel as though other people find
us impressive. We want prestige, which is a kind of
power. We want the credibility that helps us get our
way and fulfill our other needs.
Sounds mercenary, I know. But hey, we’re only

human.
Last but certainly not least, we crave the creative

fulfillment of our true potential.
Each of us is born with a “purpose,” that thing which

seemingly came out of nowhere but is pretty much
all-consuming. Why do you want to be a writer? A
rockstar? A model? A photographer? If you’re like
me, this is somewhat confusing. It feels like I have
to write or I will die … but why? Why would I attach
so much self-worth to the fulfillment of this goal?
27 SARAH BETH MOORe

Well, as to that, I have no answer. Who knows, man?
The question of why we create is a subject that could
fill many books. For the sake of beauty, a specific
message, a desire to be heard or to live on, simple
enjoyment … the theories abound.
So let’s just accept as fact that we hitch our horse

to the hand fate dealt us and we go from there.
That Giant Creative Goal represents the fulfill-
ment for which we so long.
All of which is my lengthy way of saying: Your brain

wants that fulfillment bad. Maybe not as much as it
wants air or sex, but still a lot. Once you have both
air and sex in your life and can neatly check those
off your list, your mind will turn to other pursuits
with seemingly equal voracity.
Okay. Now we understand a little bit more about

the needs to which our brains subject us. The thing
is, we tend to leave it there.
We assume that we want This One Thing because

only with This One Thing are we truly whole.
When we accept our creative desires as an

immutable truth at the core of our being, though,
it becomes a lot harder to deal with failure. If we
fail at reaching those desires, that means we have

failed at who we are. We are broken. We are missing
a piece, because that piece is out there and we have
not managed to grab it and bring it home.
This is erroneous thinking, though.
Firstly, let’s go ahead and check the requisite New

Age-y “You’re perfect as you are!” box. The idea here,
while annoying, is true: You don’t need anything
else to be a Whole You. Most likely you’re not perfect
(I am, but you’re probably not), but you’re still good
to go. You don’t need any one piece of success to be
the person you’re meant to be. In fact, that kind of
thinking is dangerous, because if you get that piece
… what then? Is your life’s purpose over?
No. It’s not. So let go of the notion that you are

currently incomplete.
But less annoyingly, and more scientifically, your

brain sometimes goes on the fritz when its different
components are out of alignment.
I love this explanation of our brains as composed of

three separate psychological structures: reptilian,
mammalian, and human.
Our reptilian brains developed 245 million years

ago, our mammalian brains 65 million years ago
29 SARAH BETH MOORe

and our human brains 200,000 years ago. If you
guessed that this puts a slight strain on the relation-
ship of your three “brains,” you are correct.
Your lizard brain is the one that constantly assesses

the environment for signs of danger! danger!
danger! Should you fight? Should you flee? Should
you respond to the massive amounts of cortisol
your lizard brain is dumping into your system
by stress-eating instead?! (Spoiler alert: Modern
humans usually pick that one.)
Your mammalian brain ascribes emotions to

everything: I’m hurt. You make me sad. That person
frightens me. I feel happy about this gold star at
work.
The human brain then brings thinking and

meaning to these feelings. You are hurt or sad
because someone said something unkind. That
person over there is scary because he’s wearing a
trench coat and standing outside a white van with
candy. You’re happy with your gold star because it
means recognition from your peers and less chance
of getting ruthlessly sacked tomorrow.
Your brains, however, don’t always align. The author

of the above-referenced article uses the example of
a soldier, whose military training turns them into a

fighting machine. That works extremely well during
wartime, when situation and surroundings mesh
well with the mandates to serve, protect, and kill, if
necessary.
But what about when that soldier comes home to

civilian life, where it is not socially acceptable to kill
people, shout commands or order folks around in
peremptory fashion? What does it feel like when the
phone rings and it’s not life-or-death, but insurance
sales? What does the brain do when there are no
enemies to look for when driving down the street?
It’s confused. The lizard brain is always on the

lookout, but there’s nothing to look for. The
mammalian brain feels put out, frustrated. The
human brain feels unfulfilled and unequipped for
the new reality. The soldier feels they do not belong
in this life, which is why former military members
often re-enlist, become depressed or engage in
self-destructive behavior. This, by the way, is the
same reason we hate being wrong, because signs
from our environment point to a different reality
than the one we hold in our heads. The brains fight.
We suffer.
Now, obviously this is a more extreme example

than your urge to start a business, become an artist
31 SARAH BETH MOORe

or learn new skills so you can get a new job. Here’s
where it matters to you.
Your thinking brain wants to create, complete a

project, see that project succeed, get accolades
from others. In your head, you are worth it and it
can totally happen! You even see the visions.
But you have not yet achieved that goal. You may
even have failed at the goal. Ergo, your reality is
not in line with what your human brain tells you
reality should be. Our action-based lizard brains
are confused about how to move forward. Our
emotional mammalian brains feel the disjuncture
and suffer.
We get broken, but not in a permanent way.
This is why failure hurts. Because, by missing the

mark, we have destroyed the previous three-brain
alignment between striving toward goal (action) >>
wanting goal (emotional) >> feeling this goal is who
we are (human). When we succeed, these three are
in alignment. When we don’t, things go haywire.
Then we are forced to concede that we faltered

along the way. The brains are at odds. It hurts. It’s
confusing.

Gross.
For some people, that’s it. They get broken. They let
the dream go, stop creating, take a second-best life.
I hope, my friend, that you are not one of those

people.
Because your brain is a liar. Your brains are liars, I

should say. When they misalign, you assume that
the end has come. Without a ready answer, your
three brains come up with the best explanation they
can: You’re a failure. Which I hope you can see is
some cobbled-together, evolutionarily influenced
bullshit that has very little to do with who you really
are.
Instead of listening to those brains, you need to

reevaluate to see where the problem entered the
picture, then take steps to correct it.
Was your human-brain goal unreasonable? Did

you try to start a design business without a design
background? (I’ve heard that’s not a good idea.) Did
you apply for a job as a helicopter pilot without a
license? (Because seriously, it will never work out.)
Was your mammalian-brain approach off-base?

Did you expect ego-boosting results in three days
33 SARAH BETH MOORe

when three years was more reasonable? This can
create the illusion of failure when really, you just
haven’t worked long enough.
Was your lizard-brain action too little or short of

the mark? Did you, for instance, put in a lukewarm
half an hour on your novel every night, only to be
“shocked” you didn’t get it written this year?
These are the questions we need to ask. The brain

doesn’t want to, of course, because such questions
are icky. Who wants to assess their shortcomings
when they could wallow in some failure, indulge in
a few pints of Ben & Jerry’s and call the parents for
comfort instead?
The truth is, accepting we’ve failed – even if it

breaks our vision of ourselves – is truly easier than
analyzing the reason for the defeat and doing
something about it. If you can’t parse those reasons,
you will continue to fail.
On the other hand, if you can handle the Acid Bath

of Self-Discovery, you’ll come out stronger and
you won’t stay broken for very long. You will put
yourself back together with the new information
you’ve obtained during your failure, and you will be
much more likely to achieve that goal at some point
in the future.

The takeaway? When you fail, your brain tells you
that you are the failure, but it is wrong.
It starts with refusing to take things personally, as

we discussed in the last chapter. You must do more
than this, however, just as you must do more than
simply understanding why you feel the way you
feel. You must then look within and ask what went
wrong. This will be the subject of several chapters
later in the book.
For now, though, you need a go-to approach for

fighting that feeling that Your Failure = You Are
a Failure. And the best way to do this is to ask
questions. Accordingly, exercises!
35 SARAH BETH MOORe

EXERCISES
1) Pick a failure, any failure. If you’re game, take
on the same Glaring Mistake from the last
exercise.
2) Ask yourself: Where were my actions wrong?
Where were my emotions off-base? Where
was my human brain convincing me I could
reach unreasonable goals without changing
other aspects of my life?
3) Adjust each approach – action, emotion,
thinking – to better fit the needs of the other
brains. How can you align them so that next
time, your approach makes more sense and
you drastically reduce the chances of collision
between the three?
If you aren’t quite sure you can handle this yet, it’s
cool. That’s what the rest of the book is for. For now,
take a stab at creating this new goal and see where
it gets you.

Chapter Three
CELEBRATE ROCK BOTTOM, OR: IF
THAT SOUNDS SUPER MESSED UP,
THINK AGAIN
We’ve already discussed why we dislike failure. It

sucks. We’re evolutionarily wired against it. It puts
our three brains out of alignment.
Now it’s time to discuss how we should experience

that failure. Because it is inevitable, and it will come.
And I’m here to tell you that you should embrace

it.
Now, you’ve heard this advice before. “Fail forward!”

they say. “Experiencing setbacks is the only way to
learn!”
Yeah, I guess.
37
Mostly, though, when I hear advice like that, I want
to punch someone in the throat and then go set
fire to my latest manuscript/painting/Instagram
staging area. For lo, I do not want to fail forward
or in any other direction. And while I do want to
learn, why is it so bad if I learn from, like, epically
succeeding the first time around?
Doubtless these are questions you ask yourself, and

like me, you have become frustrated at points with
the seemingly pat response given by the blogo-
sphere as a whole.
Because basically, it’s crap. Failure isn’t incredibly

valuable simply because it teaches you what not to
do next time. Iteration isn’t inherently painful, and
you don’t have to fail miserably in order to learn;
you can discover what not to do without actually
failing.
Failure is valuable for a different reason, and one

that most people miss: Each and every time you
mess up, let yourself down or fail to accomplish a
task you’ve set yourself – publicly or privately – your
brain learns to accept those feelings as reality. You
teach your lizard brain, mammal brain and human
brain, “Oh look! The sun’s still coming up!”

This is a hard lesson. For all the reasons we’ve
already discussed, we instinctively shy away from
doing wrong or looking small in the eyes of others.
If we have even a whiff of a hint of a suspicion that
we might muck it up, we experience strong urges
to run in the other direction. A trajectory that,
hopefully, contains comfort items such as dogs
and fleece blankets and earbuds to block out the
imagined sounds of mocking laughter.
Stop lying to yourself. You know that direction is

your favorite direction. (Or at least, it’s mine.)
Here’s where you get to make a choice. A choice

between actually taking that path and recognizing
that the path is there but ignoring it.
The truth about that path is that, too often, what lies
at the end of it is not temporary comfort or recu-
peration from your recent experience, but total
abandonment of the dream that led to the failure
that led to The Fast and No-Holds-Barred Flight
from Your Latest Venture.
As I said, not a good path.
The better path is just as painful, but contains

buried treasure at the end.
39 SARAH BETH MOORe

This is the path of celebrating rock bottom.
So, here’s another story. The story of when I hit

absolute rock bottom in my personal and creative
life.
Not my work life, you understand; my creative life.
Yes, this is a different time from that design thing.

This is a book about failure, people. There are going
to be a lot of them, okay? Go ahead and keep a tally
if you like; you can use it against me when I run for
president.
Psych. That sounds like the worst job in the world.
This particular failure is one I discuss in Get the

Hell Over It: How to Let Go of Fear and Realize Your
Creative Dream. It sucks so bad that I’m writing
about it twice, in the hopes that you can – contrary
to the spirit of this chapter – learn from my missteps
in this one area, at least.
If you want the whole story, you can head to my

author page and check out that other book, but for
now, I’ll recap quickly:
I’ve always wanted to author young adult fantasy

books. As it happens, I now self-publish, but at
the time, I was dead-set on getting a traditional

publishing contract. After penning a 90,000-word
manuscript, I headed to a literary conference to
find an agent.
And I did. I was over the moon on signing the

contract. My parents took me out to dinner. It was
all falling into place…
Until it turned out she wasn’t happy with the book,

and three rounds of edits didn’t change that, and I
was forced to walk away. It was the worst thing that
had happened to me to date, creatively speaking. I
almost gave up on the whole writing thing entirely,
except instead, I pivoted.
I started creating copy, and found I was actually

pretty darn good at it. I then did a brief stint as
an unsuccessful designer, as discussed, but soon
enough I was back to the copywriting. And I’m still
here.
This experience was worth it, and then some,

because I was forced to ask:
Do I want to be a writer for a specific kind of

accolade, or do I want to write so that I can write
all day?
41 SARAH BETH MOORe

If you guessed the latter, I owe you a drink. A virgin
drink, that is, since I’m in AA and it wouldn’t be
appropriate otherwise. (The whole rock bottom
thing is starting to make sense now, eh?)
The flopped book-deal-to-be stands as the

rock-bottomest of all my rock bottoms, and today,
I’m so grateful for it. It taught me who I really want
to become: a self-satisfied, reclusive introvert who
works at home in pajamas all day.
What? Don’t judge me.
I’m not the only one who thinks rock bottom is

valuable, either. You don’t have to look far to find
advice of this kind or this kind, trumpeting the
virtues of absolutely splatting on the pavement of
this cruel universe. In fact, while many make the
case for rock bottom in your personal or spiritual
life, you can even find advice geared specifically
toward entrepreneurs.
See, sometimes, rock bottom pulls us out of a cycle

we could never have broken on our own. I know
that’s true for me, and I’m betting that, in at least
some cases, it’s true for you as well.
Even science says so: Losing one identity can

result in the positive generation of new and better

identities through freeing you up to examine what’s
possible now that wasn’t before. (Careful, though…
if all you do is tear yourself down, you will receive
none of the benefits of rock bottom.)
So, okay. I’ll assume you’ve now accepted that rock

bottom is helpful.
But what is the mechanism by which you make use

of it?
The question is not, “Will I fail?” but “How will I

choose to react when I do?”
And the answer is actually pretty simple: You must

choose to transform your shame thinking into guilt
thinking.
If your instinctive response to this is, “I’m sorry, you

expect me to feel guilt for giving vent to my creative
dreams and falling short?”
Well, no. I don’t expect you to feel guilt at all.

But I know that you have some emotions, so I’m
advocating that you transform the worst of them –
shame – into the more useful feeling of guilt.
First, let’s distinguish between our society’s current

perception of guilt as having done something
morally wrong or blameworthy, and the true nature
43 SARAH BETH MOORe

of guilt, which is far less icky. The truth is that guilt
as a feeling doesn’t have to be tinged with ugly
motives. Guilt is just a feeling that we’ve done
something we wish we hadn’t, and that emotion
motivates us not to repeat our mistake.
Think about it. You can be guilty of overcommit-

ting, poor planning or cavalier behavior. These are
all areas where most people have experienced guilt
without having to go to court over it.
This is really a different way of saying that you can

choose to experience a failure (guilt) or be a failure
(shame). Always choose the former, my friend. It’s
much the better path through life.
Easier said than done, though, so here are a few

tips:
1) When you fail in your creative life/another

sphere, remind yourself that not wishing to
repeat this crappy experience is not the same
as possessing an intrinsic moral failing
2) Celebrate the fact that the sun still rises each
morning you wake up… and what a gift this is,
because it proves future drawbacks aren’t the
godawful, soul-murdering, You’ve Been Cast

Out of the Tribe Forever and Always moments
your brain wants you to believe they are
3) Don’t give in to the feeling that everyone is
watching and judging you; they probably
aren’t
4) Remember that each time you emotionally
re-experience your cringeworthy moment(s),
that’s your brain’s helpful way of making you
remember this experience, so you don’t have
to repeat it
5) Remind yourself that without nasty intent on
your part, a failure really says nothing bad
about you at all
Most importantly, remember that one failure is

a terrible sample size. Frankly, so are five or ten
failures. In the grand scheme of all the things you
do every day in life, one or two or seven missteps
mean basically nothing.
Think about having a bad date, or messing up a

meal you cook or failing to please a new client.
Not only do these things become less painful the

more often they happen (and you will have bad
dates and meals and client experiences), but you
become better at avoiding them. Personally, I’m
45 SARAH BETH MOORe

not on the market romantically, but I cook meals
and meet clients all the time. Mostly? It goes well.
Sometimes? It goes wrong.
Or super wrong. Depending.
The takeaway, though, is that now when it goes

wrong, I shrug. A fallen cornbread just doesn’t
bother me that much, because I will make more
cornbread. A bad client interaction sucks and
might even ruin my day, but it does not even touch
my self-confidence, because I have so many good
client interactions to balance it out.
Celebrating rock bottom does more than that,

though. It enables you to learn from those mistakes
by reinventing your failures as a good thing.
I realize how prevalent this advice is and how utterly

ridiculous it sounds. I do. But it’s true. I can honestly
say, in the last several years, that I have become
excellent at zooming in on failures and asking
questions such as: Why did this happen? What was
my part? How can I stop it from happening again?
What is the longest, slowest way to kill that person?
Then I take action. Maybe not on that last one

(though I definitely still ask it), but on the rest of
them, for sure. The answers help me choose the

right course of action in the current situation, but
also avoid future situations. Rock bottom, in other
words, helps me create a better product, a better
service, a better experience for my audience and a
better life for me. Every shitty day I spend praying
will just effing end already has the major silver
lining of teaching me an invaluable lesson.
It will for you too… if you take the right approach.
No exercises. This is a rough chapter. You now have

permission to run to the puppies/fleece blankets/
headphones and stay there for a while. Godspeed.
47 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Four
FIND THE HIDDEN GEMS, OR: GOLD
AMIDST THE ASHES
I’m a real sucker for young adult books, especially

fantasy.
One of my absolute favorite tropes is when Young

Girl or Boy walks into Destroyed Village Where
Parents and All Other Loved Ones Have Been
Soullessly Murdered by Bad Guys and Meanders
Slowly through the Ashes, only to Eventually
Stumble upon His/Her Own Former Home.
There, Young Girl or Boy or Alternately Gendered

Hero invariably finds a half-melted Token of the
Past, like Grandpa’s gold watch now ruined beyond
repair or the last oxen harness buckle Older Brother
will ever make. She or he picks this up, strings it on
a leather thong and transforms it into the memento
48
that fuels their furious efforts to master swordcraft/
spellwork/political acumen so that, one day far in
the future, their people may be avenged.
Sure, this is probably a little extreme for your

situation. I fervently hope no one has burned down
your village lately. If they have, my sincerest prayers
go out to you. If they haven’t, I guess we just found
something to put on our gratitude list for today.
And yet.
At risk of sounding a little overdramatic, failure can

often feel like someone has just torched everything
you hold dear.
Now, it hurts badly when a career skids or a marriage

ends or a child turns to drugs. Those are very, very
personal failures and they can take a strong toll.
They’re among the worst things that can happen to
you.
But creative failure, while not as bad as the above

examples, is pernicious. It’s sneaky and mean and
leaves you feeling all alone.
Again, I’m not saying it’s worse than problems with

your job, S.O. or children. It isn’t. But when you
suffer a setback in these areas of your life, your loved
49 SARAH BETH MOORe

ones tend to cluster around and offer support. You
have one large obstacle to overcome, toward which
to rally your resources. Does that make it easy? No,
of course not. Sometimes, it’s brutally hard.
But creative failure brings an extra-fun ingredient

to the mix, which is the fact that no one steps up. Or
at least, far fewer people.
To be fair, a failed business launch has nothing on

a death in the family, so you can’t really expect the
same kind of supportive outflow from others. That
doesn’t make it any easier to deal with the recent
setback, especially since creative flops can feel
much more isolating than the general hard knocks
of life. I want to stress that they can, because I am not
saying anyone’s personal hell, recent or distantly
past, wasn’t terrible/isolating/etc., but again, your
community tends to rally around in times of crisis.
The trouble is, creative failure is typically only

perceived as a crisis in your own soul. Maybe, if
you’re lucky, a boyfriend or girlfriend really cares
too. Probably one or both of your parents, if you’re
lucky. But the world in general?
Meh.

This, though, is one of the gems amidst the ashes.
This is A Token That Shall Fuel Your Future Efforts to
Take Over the World (Or at Least Open a Redbubble
Shop and Fit into That Dress You’ve Been Staring at
for Six Months). Here’s the gem:
The fact that almost no one cares shows you who

does care.
Failure shows you who your creative community

is.
People who shrug or pat your shoulder mindlessly

or don’t ask at all can still provide great friendship
and support in other areas, but they’re not your
creative community. This is when you ask: Who did
care?
You need to spend a lot more time with those

people, my friend.
Personally, three of my favorite creative friends

come from my failed design business. Did the
design thing suck? Yep. Am I sorry? No. If you were
paying attention, you know that three of my favorite
creative friends come from my failed design business,
and I certainly wouldn’t trade them for one less
bittersweet experience in my life.
51 SARAH BETH MOORe

So even if you got support from only one person, but
that person was really there for you, that’s amazing
news! Now it’s time to ask that person, “Hey, do you
want to be writing buddies/film critics/running
pals/whatever together?”
That thought might scare you, but don’t let it. This is
elementary stuff. Like, literally. Back in elementary
school, we used to say things like, “Do you want to
be my friend?” I say we can still say those things, so
don’t shy away. The worst thing you’ll get is a no,
and honestly, that’s not so bad.
Failure enables you to separate the wheat from

the chaff.
Another hidden gem: Failure is an excellent road

test for what works and what doesn’t. This is
obvious, of course, but many creatives make the
mistake of tossing out the baby with the bathwater.
They assume that because this one manuscript

didn’t work, they shouldn’t write. Or because this
one gig fell through, playing professionally is a
stupid idea. Maybe it is, but this one instance is not
proof of that. Instead, grab hold of this gem and ask
questions such as:

What worked well about this venture and needs to
stay? What needs to go? Who can you ask to help
you sort it all out?
Failure shows you what you’re already good at.
Sometimes, failing at something shows you how

much you love the thing you already do. I have more
proof of this in my life than I care to admit. I have
started and quit and half-finished so many projects,
it’s hard to keep track. I’ve full-finished more than
a few of them… to crickets, whereupon I promptly
gave up. I’ve prepped and planned and launched
and leveraged and marketed and mortgaged my
sanity on something, then still sent it blowing away
like a tumbleweed into the dusty American West.
Poetic, I know.
The only thing all these half-finished and half-for-

gotten projects have in common – aside from the
fact that they’re products of the creative demon
inside me – is that after they depart, I always turn
back to writing.
Year after year after year, I try something and fail at

something and realize that writing is still my jam.
After all this time?
53 SARAH BETH MOORe

… Always.
(Yes, that was a Severus Snape reference. Yes, we

should all love him forever because he is good and
wonderful and complicated and pure in just the
right way. Yes, I am an avowed nerd.)
On that note, let’s wrap up. This exercise will be

simple. It’s all about finding your gems, my friend.
They are there, and they are the phoenix in this
whole ashy scenario, so don’t ignore them.

EXERCISES
1) Spend another minute thinking about that
recent creative failure.
2) What sucked about it? What do you know not
to do now?
3) What did you learn you were good at? What
can you not help coming back to, even after
the small/giant disaster that just went down?
4) Who was there for you?
5) Call, email or text just ONE PERSON tonight,
inviting them to go on some sort of creative
journey with you. Yes! Do it! Do it now! RIGHT
NOW!
You’ll thank me later. And when you do, I am sure

I’ll be delighted to hear your kind words.
Still, you should know that I’m not opposed to a

Starbucks card. Just saying.
55 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Five
PRACTICE ACCEPTANCE, OR: FEEL
WHAT YOU CAN’T HELP BUT FEEL
If you live in the same dreamland as I do, your

fantasies are filled with the ability to face adversity
with a gentle and sanguine Acceptance of What Is.
No matter what happens – failure, rejection, fear,
pain, DMV lines – you simply smile and shrug,
waiting for the inevitable to wrap you in its not-so-
sweet embrace and carry you off to wherever the
hell it has in mind for you.
While you, meantime, fold your hands into a prayer

position and bow your head with a soft smile.
Namaste, Good Friend Adversity, you will say. We

are all one in the great wheel of suckery we call Life,
and I love you as my sister.
56
Doesn’t that sound nice? Wouldn’t that be a cozy,
Mother Teresa-ish way to live?
Yet, you are NOT Mother Effing Teresa. You are you
(I’m guessing), and “you” is a lot less serene than
the Saint of Calcutta (I’m also guessing). Therefore,
your responses to slights and miscarriages of justice
and missed marks and last places is a bit less subtle.
Or at least, mine is. “Screw you and the horse you

rode in on, Universe!” is one of my milder responses.
I’ll spare you the ruder vitriol. Point being, we have
a very hard time with the Acceptance of What Is,
especially when it comes to failure.
The problem with failing to accept your failure is that

it doubles or triples the negativity of the situation.
How many times has the following happened to
you?
You fail at something. You dwell on the failure.

You feel sad, angry and despondent. Then, like a
magical cocktail of compounded feelings from hell,
you start feeling sad, angry and despondent about
the fact that you feel sad, angry and despondent.
If I were a mature, successful adult, you tell yourself

critically, I wouldn’t feel this way. I would pick up
gamely and move on! What’s wrong with me?
57 SARAH BETH MOORe

The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with you.
There’s certainly something wrong with society,

though. In our self-helpful, positivity-obsessed,
participation-trophy-giving world, we’ve been
programmed to believe that when we feel bad,
we’re doing something wrong. Not only have you
failed, but you’ve failed to feel good about how
great and lucky you are to have failed.
Just in the last chapter, we discussed the hidden

gems of failure. They’re there.
However, we have expressions such as “hidden

gem” and “silver lining” for a reason. Inherent
in those pretty-sounding phrases is the fact that
there’s a much, much bigger pile of crap lurking just
beyond them.
Newsflash: You don’t have to love that pile of crap.
It does not feel good to say goodbye to your entre-

preneurial dreams and take a 9-to-5 instead. It’s
not fun to set aside a fun new solo venture because
it’s not making money. It is extremely, super-duper
lame to spend hours and days and weeks and
months on a novel manuscript or new blog, only
to watch it sizzle and steam like the world’s most
silver-lining-less pile of dog poo.

Super. Duper. Lame.
So what’s a hopeful lord or lady to do?
Well, my fair friend, much of coping with failure

comes down to your ability to accept that it simply
is. It’s there, and when it happens, the feelings
aren’t going anywhere for a while. Your choice is to
fight the feelings and feel even worse, or to learn to
accept.
Let’s agree that the latter sounds a bit better. Here’s

how to get started.
First, understand the five stages of grief.
Unless you’ve been living in Hobbiton your whole

life, you’ve heard this concept. Most people even
know that the five stages include:
»» Denial
»» Anger
»» Bargaining
»» Depression
»» Acceptance
Note that acceptance comes at the end of all those

other crummy steps. Incidentally, the first four steps
don’t have to happen in order. We often ping-pong
59 SARAH BETH MOORe

back and forth between them until we finally settle
into acceptance, and even that may not become
permanent right away.
Don’t be misled. Failure is absolutely a cause of

grief. Almost anything to which you attached your
hopes for months or years (or sometimes even
weeks) won’t go away easily. Is it as bad as losing
a parent, a significant other, a child, a close friend,
a wage-earning job on which you depended?
Absolutely not, and anyone who tells you otherwise
either has not experienced a great loss or is insane.
Or both.
Nevertheless, what you feel when you fail – other

than the embarrassment, shame and what’s-the-
point-ness that we’ve already discussed – is grief.
Like any other type of grief, you’ll have to work to
feel those feelings while you work your way through
it to get to acceptance.
Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing about this

situation?”
The trouble is, too often we get stuck in our heads.

We cannot see the failure forest for the trees. (Is
that metaphor working? I can’t tell.) The feelings
become all-encompassing, and our ability to move
on hits the skids.

No, no, no, no, no.
Instead, you need to do the hard thing and look that

failure right in the face. Often, if you ask yourself,
“What is the worst thing about this?” you will
realize that the “worst thing” is not really that bad.
Yes, it sucks to tell people you didn’t accomplish
something, but how bad does it really suck? Are you
clothed? Are you fed? Are you healthy? Are your
loved ones well, or relatively well? In this moment,
are your basic needs met?
Mmkay. You’ll be fine.
I remember my midwives telling me this when

I was pregnant with my first child. They had me
hold a piece of ice in my hand (which is shockingly
uncomfortable after about 30 seconds) and focus
on the pain. Instead of trying to escape, they wanted
me to really, really focus on the thing that sucked.
Weirdly, when I did, the pain lessened. It’s like my
body was able to stop screaming for a second and
say to itself, “Huh. That’s just ice. I sure don’t like it,
but my hand seems fine. I seem fine.”
It helped a lot, and this same trick applies to your

mental state following fails, both epic and minor.
Focusing on those nasty feelings will open your
eyes to how minor they may actually be.
61 SARAH BETH MOORe

So that’s one tool: just asking yourself how much
this really matters, and answering honestly.
But that’s far from your only recourse.
You can also use a full range of physical, mental,

emotional and spiritual tools to work through
the feelings.
These depend on you. Perhaps you love running,

cooking or visiting your parents. Maybe you love
romance novels, Netflix reruns or the Great Courses.
Personally, I love podcasts about the Dark Ages and

space, making gluten-free muffins and listening to
Christmas music. Yes, all year round. Not all the
time, you understand, but pretty much every time
I’m low, I’ll throw on Ol’ Bing, and I’m not ashamed
of it.
Truth is, I’m not a psychologist. (If I were a psychol-

ogist, I could charge a lot more for this advice,
amiright?) At the end of the day, I can’t do anything
to help you find acceptance that you can’t do on
your own.
But I can point you in the right direction, which, to

recap, is to:

1) Stop denying what happened and feel those
feelings. Think, journal, talk with someone
else; whatever you do, recognize those feelings
and give them some space out in the world.
2) Ask yourself what the worst thing about this
situation really is, and marvel at how not-re-
ally-that-bad it is.
3) Use your physical, mental, emotional and
spiritual tools to deal with the feelings until
they resolve.
What tools, you say? Good question.
Let’s find out.
63 SARAH BETH MOORe

EXERCISES
Your tools are different from anyone else’s, but they
probably come in a general range of categories:
exercise, soothing domestic activities, time with
friends, hobbies, media consumption.
These are all great, though I will caution you against

sinking too deeply into the arms of television, as well
as jumping straight into another creative project.
That’s likely to lead to bouncing from project to
project, which you’ve doubtless done before. Not
that helpful. Instead:
1) Think deeply about what does help in times of

stress and woe
2) List five activities you love that have nothing
to do with work/creative pursuits/focusing on
the recent failure
3) Go do one tonight. If you can, do two or
combine them (i.e. a bath and a book!)

Chapter Six
LOOK AT YOUR SUCCESSES,
OR: YOU KICK ASS IN SOME
WAYS, AT LEAST
This is a tricky one.
After all, how many times have you heard the phrase
“count your blessings”?
I’m putting my money on “roughly a kajillion.” And

while it’s definitely good advice, it’s not that easy a
practice to keep up. Firstly, because of negativity
bias, which we’ve already discussed. And secondly,
because it can actually work against your motivation
and willingness to push forward.
It’s easy to rest on our laurels for the rest of our lives.
I like to brag that I wrote my 80-page senior college
thesis overnight, then received one of the Honors
65
College’s most prestigious awards for it. Slam dunk,
right?
That was a decade ago. I’m still bragging about it.
Like just now. When I bragged about it to you.
At a certain point, you have to look at me and

wonder, “Doesn’t she have any new brags?”
Yeah, but I still really like that brag. *whines*
Like I said, this chapter is tricky. On the one hand,

you really need fallbacks when you fail. It’s important
to look at the times in your life when you succeeded
and bolster yourself with the feelings of success you
experienced when you were high on those achieve-
ments. I have a short list of Most Impressive Things
Sarah Did, to which I turn regularly when I fall short
in other areas of my life.
Is that mature? I’m not sure. But does it help? Yeah,

it does. Sometimes it’s the only thing that helps me
move on with whatever I’m currently laboring over.
As creatives, we have a major predisposition for I

Suck Syndrome. This is the little-understood but
widely experienced phenomenon of believing
you’re not a very worthwhile entrepreneur/artist/

author/person simply because you experience a
minor setback.
Again, humans tend to attribute their flops to a flaw

in character rather than a flaw in execution, but the
latter is more often the truth.
The question becomes: What do you do when you

simply can’t find a light at the end of the tunnel?
Because trust me, if you can’t, then “I suck” is the
beginning and the end.
Well, it’s not actually the end. The end looks more
like re-binging the Twilight series, when you should
be working or upping your Hulu membership
or stress shopping or drowning your sorrows in
cookie butter. (For those of you who didn’t know
about cookie butter, you’re welcome. Also I’m
sorry, because no other earthly pleasure will ever
compare.)
Learn to celebrate your past successes and turn to

them when you need to.
What you’re looking for is proof that you are not

what your brain is claiming you are – e.g. a failure, a
bad writer, a lame artist.
67 SARAH BETH MOORe

You might be not trying hard enough, not giving
things enough time, etc. But you probably aren’t an
all-around failure, and it’s time to make the case for
that to your brain.
My favorite approach to this is the idea that your

past successes are not just dust collectors. Those
ribbons, trophies, awards, A+s, newspaper clippings
from college, Employee of the Month awards and
more… they still matter. Because when everything
goes to shit, they’re a reminder of who you are.
Not a failure.
Just someone who, you know, failed a little bit.
The good news? The solution to this problem is

pretty simple, and we’ll take a look at it in the
exercises.

EXERCISES
Okay, here’s what you do. So. Dang. Easy.
1) Compile a list.
2) Post it somewhere visible. Stick it in your
wallet if you’re embarrassed to put up a public
reminder of how dope you did on that one drill
team performance. But never forget! NEVER
FORGET.
3) Pull it out whenever you need reminding.
4) Make a shrine to your success. It can be
physical (trophies) or electronic (a documents
folder full of cool digital accomplishments).
That’s it. Next time life feels like a little too much,
and you feel a little too low, just head to one of your
I rock-and-I-always-have sources and give yourself
a lil’ refresher. You deserve it.
69 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Seven
DON’T WAIT TO TRY AGAIN, OR:
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (MAYBE)
Pop quiz: If you pull out a piece of paper and a pencil

or open a document, then set a timer for 5 minutes,
how many items can you put on your bucket list?
I’m betting it’s in the 40-50 range. Places you’d like
to see, activities you’d like to do, people you’d like to
meet. It’s probably enough for two lifetimes.
See, my friend, life is short. One of the biggest

mistakes we make is thinking we have more time
than we really do, and so, we’re willing to waste
that precious time when something bad or hurtful
happens to us.
Like, you guessed it, a creative failure.
70
I understand the temptation to crawl into a hole
and hide when something goes wrong, when you
suffer an embarrassment or a setback, when you
come in second or seventieth.
Those are understandable emotions, and it’s okay

to respond accordingly… for a bit. You can take a
break without shame, because you’re only human.
But then?
It’s time to get back out there.
Jim Rohn once said, “Success is nothing more than

a few disciplines, practiced every day. Failure is a
nothing more than a few errors, repeated every
day.”
This is the exact same notion behind one of my

favorite reads, The Compound Effect. At the root
of both quote and book is the idea that the little
things you do, each and every day, define who
you become. If you take “just a little break” every
day, then in a year’s time, you’ll have wasted 365
hours or more. In ten years, you’ll find yourself so
far behind the competition, it’s doubtful you’ll ever
catch up. More importantly, though, you’ll fall so
far behind your own expectations that disappoint-
ment will inevitably become your lot.
71 SARAH BETH MOORe

On the other hand, if you practice discipline and
work toward your goal every day, you can’t help but
reach success.
One of the best approaches to failure is to try to

see it as an opportunity for learning.
I know, I know. Too pat, right? But it’s true. Every

single screw-up is a chance to learn to do things
right next time.
Learning is critical. We learn more about ourselves

every day, which is one of the gifts of the human
condition. Of course, the price of that gift is
unpleasant experiences that precede the “gifts”
– which are often very hard to see as gifts in the
moment.
Just yesterday, someone emailed me saying he had

found my profile on LinkedIn and would love for
me to help him with his business. I am a copywriter.
Helping people with their business is my thing. So
naturally, I asked him how I could help. I believe
my exact words were, “I’m at your service.”
Imagine how ridiculous I felt when I found out it

was one of those Nigerian Prince Guys. Once I got
his billion-page pitch about his dead “compatriot”
and his “high standing at Made Up Bank” and his

need for “utmost secrecy,” I naturally felt like a total
idiot. My husband laughed at me. Several puzzle
pieces came together, like his weird Gmail address
and the bizarre wording of his original email and
the general ping of suspicion I felt upon reading it.
But I ignored those, because I like business. I want
money and success. Don’t we all?
My brain let me down, and I was mad at it.
Immediately after this, I received another slightly

suspicious email from someone else wanting my
help, but not explaining exactly why. I felt skeptical,
angry at that person for being A Possible Dick like
the last person, irrationally afraid that someone
would make a fool of me once again.
Naturally, I’m under no obligation to respond to

anyone’s email, but I asked myself: Do I really want
to be the person who draws conclusions about myself
or others and calls it good?
I decided, no. I don’t. So I answered. Guess what?

He’s a client now. But you best believe I checked his
email address and asked him what he wanted right
up front.
73 SARAH BETH MOORe

Remember, none of us knows how much time
we have. Are you really going to let a little failure
stop you from getting back out there?
Truthfully, sometimes all you get from a failure is

the knowledge of what you’re supposed to do next.
That’s okay; it’s a course correction, and probably
one you desperately needed.
Call this failing forward, if you will.
One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned in

my life is that if I don’t enjoy the struggle involved
in forging a meaningful career, I will not succeed in
that field.
This is perfectly exemplified by my failed design

business. I liked the idea of design. I could see
myself as Designer Chick with Cool Glasses Sitting
at Coffee Shop. “Oh, are you building a website?”
someone would ask. “Why, yes!” I would answer. “It’s
for Tiffany’s and they’re paying me a jillion dollars,
NBD!” From then on, I would wear only robin’s egg
blue, and everyone would know why, because my
famous designer face would be everywhere
The reality was a little different, mostly because

whoever the hell designs the Tiffany’s website is
probably obsessed with their job, takes frequent

classes to brush up on their skills, goes to confer-
ences and practices until their fingers bleed.
My approach was slightly different: Hope. Think

about how great I would be one day. Shrug and
watch television and try to ignore the creeping
feeling that I and my failure were one.
This is not a unique scenario. In fact, it’s what most

of us do.
As Mark Manson points out in his book, The Subtle

Art of Not Giving a Fuck (the blog post is also worth
a read), we often neglect a very important tenet
of work: If you don’t enjoy the struggle, you won’t
succeed. Not the fun outcomes or dope office
parties, which we can all enjoy. Who doesn’t love
accolades and calamari, after all?
No, Manson says, it’s the grinding, grueling, boring

and unglamorous work in between that you better
learn to enjoy. The solving of knotty problems, the
drudgery of learning a craft, the simple but hellish
task of overcoming our sometimes all-consuming
insecurities. Can you honestly say that the work
you’re doing now, or the work you want to do in
the future, meets these criteria? Can you honestly
say that you want to spend unpaid, unpleasant and
unnoticed hours working on your trade?
75 SARAH BETH MOORe

Me, I can’t say that about design. Turns out I can say
it about writing.
Manson’s example is his idea of being a rock star.

He loved the image of a crowded arena, with fans
yelling his name as he blew their minds with sweet
jams. He did not love to practice, rehearse, lug
equipment around, figure out how to plug things
in, market himself or work gigs. He did not, in other
words, enjoy the struggle.
(If you were curious, he’s not a rock star today.)
You need to enjoy the struggle, and frankly, when

you’re taking a big ol’ fear break, that’s not enjoying
the struggle. That’s lurking on the sidelines, waiting
for your courage to come back. Which, sadly,
usually follows getting back on the horse rather
than precedes it.
Speaking of horses, which we totes were, there are

other good reasons to get back on quickly.
The main one is that failure is a kind of motivation,

if you can strike while the iron is hot.
It’s like taking a test. Would you take the class, then
take the test a year later? No, you take the test right
away.

Well, your failed attempt was the class. The test is
this: Can you learn to correct what went wrong? If
you “take that test” by restarting right away, you
have a much better chance than if you wait. Give
it 3 months, 6 months or a year, and you’re much
likelier to make the same mistakes again.
Plus, waiting makes the fear mount.
Waiting turns a temporary setback into A

HUMONGOUS GIANT FAILURE. When you wait,
you create a break in the timeline. When your brain
looks at that break, it will see a big ol’ valley in your
productivity, motivation and output. It interprets
this as, “Ah, that’s the time I failed. I probably
shouldn’t do that again.”
On the other hand, if that break is only a week or

two long? Maybe a month at most? It’s a blip. It’s
that time you took a little break before kicking ass
again.
So remind yourself that you don’t have all the time

in the world.
Let me end with this adorable story from my

adorable son, who was in the living room building
a fabulously giant pirate ship, with flamboyant
Lego towers and spidery gangplanks and lord only
77 SARAH BETH MOORe

knows what else. Surprising no one, considering
how delicate it was, the ship shattered into a million
pieces as soon as he tried to fly it. (Yes, his pirate
ships fly. He hasn’t even read Peter Pan yet.)
At first, he cried. But then, unprompted, he looked

at me and said, “It’s okay, mama. I’m going to build
a better ship.”
Kids have the right idea, see. Their entire lives are
failure. They haven’t yet learned that running and
falling and running again is a bad thing, so they
just do it. We could really stand to take a page out
of their books, and get back on that horse/donkey/
luck dragon/steed of choice without further delay.
For which motivation, we turn to the exercises.

EXERCISES
Getting back in the saddle isn’t easy, but it becomes
simpler and less terrifying if you have a solid plan
in place. When you first try and regroup, you’ll feel
a little lost, which is why instead of trying to “figure
out a new direction,” you should simply pick one
task and have at it. Try one of the following:
»» Do more of something you’re good at (more

blogging, most Instagramming, more writing,
more art)
»» Find a creative group
»» Journal about your insights from the last
project, so you know what to change next time
»» Take action on those insights right away
»» Give yourself some easy wins, like completing
a small creative project
79 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Eight
LET GO OF YOUR NEED FOR
APPROVAL, OR: WHAT THEY THINK
DOESN’T MATTER
Failure stings like a mother.
Well, maybe not like a mother. My mom is actually

soothing in the case of stings. So let’s say that failure
is like the jellyfish sting you get that your mother has
to soothe, assuming she’s a good mom. Or dad or
aunt or spiritual advisor at the monastic orphanage
in which you grew up. Whatevs.
Point? Failure is just not fun.
It’s especially un-fun when it’s public, or even

when you perceive it to be public … which we do
in basically all situations. The thirteen-year-old
80
within us all is forever convinced that EVERYONE
IS WATCHING.
But they’re not. They’re busy rocking back and forth

in a corner thinking everyone is watching them, so
don’t worry.
Even knowing that’s true, however, our brain still

manages to convince us that we’re in the limelight,
which is painful. It discourages us from trying again,
that’s for sure.
No Bueno.
Because no true success has ever made it without

boatloads of failure.
Yet the need to avoid failure persists, because our

biological brains tell us that we need to be a part of
a pack. That’s how we stay safe, right? Failure makes
us feel this way so that we’re careful not to screw up
again, so that the pack will want us.
Of course, you don’t automatically need anyone

else. A man could be an island even back in caveman
days. (So could a cavewoman, folks, so don’t think
I’m sexist over here.)
The discouraging thing about this, though, is that

your evolutionarily wired need for approval is
81 SARAH BETH MOORe

probably hampering your efforts. First, because it
makes you less likely to keep going in the face of
failure.
Second – and perhaps more disturbingly – because

hearing how great you are makes you paradoxically
even more afraid of screwing up.
This is a common point of irritation for child psychol-

ogists and teachers. Two decades of research has
demonstrated unequivocally that children who
hear lazy-ass praise such as “Good job, Caleb!” are
less likely to try next time. There’s a good reason for
this: The “good job” fails to compliment them for
their actual accomplishment – it’s stupid blanket
praise, after all, and they’re often not even doing a
“job.” They’re playing or cutting some haphazard
piece of construction paper or futzing with a puzzle.
Even they know they’re not doing much, nor trying
that hard.
Yet that “good job” has an ugly effect on the ego: It

makes us not want to try again. After all, we already
earned the kudos. If we try again, we might lose it
this time. So why try? Why work anymore?
Nothing good ever happened because someone

told you that you did a good job. Good things come
of sweat, of not being good enough, yet trying again.

And again. And again. And still, all those times, not
quite hitting the mark.
To take the research further, pioneering child

psychologist Carol Dweck clarifies that effort isn’t
even enough; you need to work toward growth.
You can’t just show up and do your “best.” As long
as you’re staying in your safe, cozy, well-trodden
space, your best is not enough.
You have to strive, truly push yourself beyond

your comfort zone and reach for goals that are,
as of yet, unattainable.
Lame, huh?
There’s a point here, though, and as the immortal

Perd Hapley would say, that point is this:
Getting others’ approval may actually deter you.
If people think you’re doing great already, why try?

Why ruin it? Why not “be good enough” just as you
are?
Many of us settle for this. We have the love of our

families and friends. We have enough to eat and
drink; we have shelter from rain and cold; we have
cute sweaters to wear in fall. (Or, for those of us who
live in Belize, cute tank tops that we quickly turn
83 SARAH BETH MOORe

un-cutely disgusting with our sweat in fall.) With
so much abundance at our fingertips, it is very easy
to slide into the Netflix-and-popcorn stupor that
makes evenings so cozy-wonderful. Truly, content-
edness and complacency are today’s opiate of the
masses.
Odd, then, that we vacillate so wildly between

this snuggly evening complacency and desperate
daytime striving to match others’ performance and
success.
So, what should you do about it?
One thing, and one thing only: Stop caring (a

prescription with which Mark Manson would
strongly agree).
You have to remember that your failures are not as

visible to others as they are to you. And if they are,
you shouldn’t be friends with that person, because
clearly they’re in your life only to tear you down and
make themselves feel better. Blerg to that.
Truth is, no one will remember your failures. We

all have them. It’s kind of boring. Maybe a failure
makes for a morsel of juicy gossip, but that’s it.

It’s the successes that stick. After all, how many
failures can you even remember? Like, Napoleon?
That one guy who thought organisms passed on
inherited characteristics but was totally shown up
by Darwin? Lamarck, was that his name?
Yeah, point is, I can’t call many to mind. Because we

humans take note of achievement. For all that we’re
wired to look for the negative, we are also wired
to immediately and irrevocably note whenever
something works, so that we can do it again.
To sum up, approval isn’t really worth all that much.

Yes, it helps sell books. It helps with word-of-mouth
marketing. It helps you grow your Twitter account.
But beyond its base material uses, it doesn’t matter.
As RuPaul said, “If they ain’t paying your bills, pay

them bitches no mind.”
So, stop seeking approval. Stop limiting yourself by

wanting others to like you or think highly of you,
and just put your head down and work. Stop giving
yourself tacit consent to do less by asking others
to tell you that you’re okay as you are. You’re not
freaking okay as you are, or you wouldn’t have this
book in your hand.
85 SARAH BETH MOORe

That’s not to say that you aren’t worth the respect,
admiration and esteem of yourself and others right
now, today. But you are the one who wants more,
and if you sincerely hope to get it, then you are the
only one to whom you should answer.
So, go git it, and don’t ask them what they think.
What makes you feel good isn’t the high opinion
of others; it’s your own belief that the work you do
every day is valid. Never forget that.
Your failure is temporary; if you can ignore the pain,

your capacity to achieve is limitless.

EXERCISES
There are no exercises. You don’t need my approval
nor anyone else’s to figure out how to wrestle with
this concept. Just do it.
87 SARAH BETH MOORe

Chapter Nine
MINIMIZE, OR: DOING LESS MIGHT
BE THE ANSWER
Hard work is turtles all the way down.
Now, if you’re not familiar with this expression, it

refers to the ancient idea that the world is supported
on the back of a turtle, which is in turn supported
by a larger turtle, under which is a larger turtle,
which is standing on a larger (and presumably
Schwarzenegger-strong at this point) turtle, and so
on. Turtles all the way down, man.
Again, work is a lot like that.
That annoying-but-entrepreneurially-neces-
sary chore you did today, relying on a skill set or
knowledge bank you built yesterday, or last week or
two years ago or in high school? That particular skill
88
set was founded on other skill sets, which, in turn,
rely on other skill sets.
While your career prowess is not quite as infinite

as the mythical turtles, it is nevertheless pretty
far-reaching. At each “turtle,” you had to put a lot of
time and TLC into earning that particular skill or bit
of knowledge or arena of competence. If you hadn’t
cared, you wouldn’t have done it – and you couldn’t
have leveraged it to do that shitty task this morning.
(Side note: Is anyone else seeing Morla in their

head right now? Because I am. Just saying.)
At this point, you’re probably wondering about the

point.
It is simply this: Everything you have accomplished

up to now is the result of serious time and energy
spent. It’s the product of putting off daily pleasures
in favor of a greater goal. It’s the natural conclusion
of not settling for “good enough.”
But all of that stuff takes time. If you focus on

too many projects and skills at once, you can’t
develop any of those skills effectively.
This is a major character flaw of mine. I have major

shiny object syndrome, which I discussed in my
89 SARAH BETH MOORe

last book, so I often get caught up in too many
projects. They’re all good projects, but they are too
numerous. They lead to overwhelm, then failure.
So, I segment them out. I schedule them out. I set

things aside, but I make plans to pick them back up.
This is critical. The more you succumb to the whims

of Shiny Object Devil (again, an unlovable character
from my last book), the more you dislike yourself
and your own body of work. The answer is to make
a plan with all those new urges, so that they’re still
part of your life, but are not taking over your life.
How? First, I give in to the urge. I don’t try to put

that urge off, because that doesn’t work. It just eats
at my brain and my creativity, convincing me all my
current projects are shit and that this amazing new
project is everything.
Instead of letting that go on, I pull up a doc and write

down all my ideas immediately. The business side,
the prose, the selling points, the branding. If it’s a
creative venture, I’ll experiment with the artwork. If
it’s a novel, I’ll outline it in Scrivener.
Case study: I have a super good idea for a candle biz.

These are all the rage on Instagram, where I spend a
lot of my time, and once the desire to throw my hat

in the ring took hold, it was hard to shake the idea.
For a while, I pushed forward with it: bought the
supplies, convinced my hubby, spoke to a potential
business partner.
Truthfully, it was a good idea. It would have worked.

What I didn’t have: the bandwidth. The willingness
to set aside writing projects at that point in my life.
An ability to take away from the clients I love to
serve a whimsical urge.
But now I have the groundwork. I have the

documents. I have somewhere to put new ideas.
I did so much research that the glitz faded and
Realism was able to creep in with its icky Realism
voice, saying, “Um, are you sure you want this right
now? Do you understand how hard it is to ______?
Do you really want to devote your weekend to filling
Etsy orders? Wouldn’t you rather, you know, go to the
farmers market?”
Which is when I realized: Yep, I don’t want this right

now. But someday? Probably.
Even if I can’t start this business for 10 years, I don’t

really care, because I know it still matters to me and
that I can do something about it when I’m ready.
Using this system, I’ve forced myself not to respond
91 SARAH BETH MOORe

to my brain’s inner insistence that YOU MUST
EXECUTE ALL GOOD IDEAS IMMEDIATELY.
Does it sound counterintuitive to do more by doing

less? Maybe. But by giving in and making room for
this new idea when it strikes, I can comfortably
keep less on my plate – and keep more long-term
projects going – than otherwise.
How does this relate to failure, you’re wondering?
Simply this: The fewer projects you take on, the fewer
at which you will fail. Much more importantly, the
less competition you create for each of your current
WIPs – whether we’re talking your latest novel or a
new diet – the more time you’ll have to focus on and
succeed at those current projects.
To a lot of people, this still feels like failure. Often,

until you have enough successful projects to put
the not-right ones aside, you will continue to feel as
though you’re letting yourself down.
Don’t. Success only comes when you funnel your

heart and your intention toward what really matters.
Otherwise, your goal of writing a novel is about as

likely as your goal of bedding Ryan Gosling. If you
want to accomplish either, you’ll have to pursue

it at the expense of pretty much everything else.
Althoug, fair warning, one of those is much likelier
to get you jailed than the other.
Minimizing is hard, though, especially with those

insistent voices in your head telling you that this
new idea is the best idea and you’ll only see success
if you do it right now.
When that happens, the only thing for it is to get the

idea out on paper so that it’s no longer knocking
around in there. But what then?
Now, it’s time to create a to-do list that works. (I talk

about this in my email course for better blogging,
which you can sign up for here).
Here’s the secret: Your to-do list should include

all your new project ideas, course corrections
and processing time after you experience a
failure.
Want to start a candle biz? Schedule in an hour to

do a brain dump, so you can set it aside – or pursue
it – in a reasonable timeframe.
Just got 20 rejections from 20 book agents? Schedule

in time to draft a new list of agents or edit your book.
93 SARAH BETH MOORe

Recently watched your latest business idea collapse
in flames? Give yourself two weeks off, and fill your
calendar with self-care. But – and this is crucial –
schedule your return to work as well. Put a project
on your to-do list that you will carry out, no matter
how small, after a certain amount of time.
Once you fill your to-do list with the most important
things, stop. Resist the urge to put everything on
that list you possibly could. Remember, turtles all
the way down. Give yourself time to succeed in the
areas that matter.
Success stems from one source: Effort. You have to

give yourself room to engage in what you want, or
you’ll never see wins.
I mean, it takes a long time to cut out all those

magazine letters and glue them into poems for
Ryan. Don’t sell yourself short, friend.
Oh, wait… That’s terrible advice. Okay, how about

some exercises instead?

EXERCISES
1) Choose a recent new project.
2) Audit it. Does it really represent the overall
direction you want your business or life to
take?
3) Do a brain dump on this idea. Keep this brain
dump going until you start to see the seamy
underbelly of the endeavor, until you get a
glimpse of how much work, time and pain this
idea will truly bring to your life.
4) Feeling pain? Keep going until you feel pain.
5) Has the suffering truly set in? Good. Now, you
are properly prepared to decide where this
idea fits in your life.
6) Carry this out whenever you have a new
project idea, start to feel overwhelmed by a
current project or feel doubt about whether
something is right for you.
I’ll warn you, though. Don’t use this as an excuse

to discard every new endeavor. If you find that this
system has you ditching all your ideas, take a look
at that. It could mean that your failures stem from
nothing more than a simple lack of confidence,
95 SARAH BETH MOORe

follow-through and willingness to experience
discomfort.
In which case, go start this book over, please. It will

do you good, and I’m here for you.
Not the case? Good. Use this system whenever you

need it, and proceed to the next chapter!

Chapter Ten
KICK ASS & TAKE NAMES,
OR: THE FINAL CHAPTER YOU
KNOW AND LOVE
This is a short chapter. Don’t say you weren’t

warned.
And here’s why it’s short: Only you know what

kicking ass and taking names means.
It probably involves some version of doing what

you’ve only been thinking about doing for years. It
likely requires some hard, deep, killer, badass work
(maybe while listening to this song). It certainly
means kicking failure in the teeth.
Mostly, though, it means understanding that failure

is real, and you cannot escape it.
97
I had lunch with a new client today, only a few
hours ago as of this writing. I’m already reflecting
back on that amazing salad and Americano by the
breezy Belizean beach, while he told me all about
the blood, sweat and tears he’d poured into his
industry over the last several decades. One story in
particular stood out to me.
After a particular business venture didn’t work out

for him, this client was looking for new work. He
met with several people, and then had a surprise
meeting with someone he’d known from his past,
who was looking for a new addition to his team.
They sat down together, and my client admitted the
hardships he’d endured during the recent unsuc-
cessful phase in his life. His prospective employer
told him:
“Yeah, I saw that coming.”
“You did?” my client asked.
“Yep, sure did,” the other man said. “You thought

you were bulletproof; you were due for a fall.”
My client was puzzled. “And you still want to hire

me?”

“I do,” said his interviewer. “I never would have
before your failure, but now I can trust you to take
this work seriously. You’re who you are today, the
person I want today, because this happened to you.”
He got the job.
See? When it comes to failure, the only option is

to embrace it, to see its benefits and to share your
stories with others. Sharing your tales and hearing
theirs are the only ways to draw power from
something that otherwise sucks major rocks.
In other words, to kick ass. And take names.
You get where I’m going with this.
Okay, get out there and WIN AT CREATIVE LIFE!

And be sure to email me if you have any questions,
would like to see more specific information in the
form of posts on the blog, or need anything else! I
hope to hear from you soon.
(See? Told you it was a short chapter.)
99 SARAH BETH MOORe

AN EXCERPT FROM GET THE HELL
OVER IT: HOW TO LET GO OF FEAR AND
REALIZE YOUR CREATIVE DREAM
(If you enjoy the following excerpt and want to

check out the most popular book in the series, you
can find that link here.)
If I hear another person bemoan the devaluation of

the degree, I might just scream. A high, girly scream
that will totally ruin the cup of tea you’re trying to
enjoy right now.
Okay, yes. It is a fact: College no longer guarantees

a career. The American dream of good job, great
house, two kids, one puppy, beaucoup martinis
and Don Draper hair for all … is no longer true.
But then, we’ve known this for a while. The question

is, what are we going to do about it?
100
I’m happy to see that the old-school desire to
find a steady job right out of college is giving way
to the new-school, ever-more-popular prospect
of launching that dream business, working from
home, building something out of nothing.
I find myself in this latter camp, as does the ever-ex-

panding class of people who identify with the job
description of “creative,” a word that until five or
ten years ago was only ever used as an adjective in
the mainstream. I mean, sure, the truly artsy-artsy
were using it as a noun before that … but no one
was listening. Probably because of the berets. One
assumes.
Anyway, it’s no longer true.
Now “creative” is a noun, and a kick-ass one at that.

Creatives come in all shapes and sizes, from artists
and writers to gardeners and carpenters to people
who just really like gluing weird shit together.
And no matter what form it takes, creativity is

power, wealth, currency.
Partially this is due to the internet, which has

afforded liberty and opportunity like never before,
allowing anyone with a few hundred bucks and
a dream to launch their creative endeavor and
101 SARAH BETH MOORe

succeed. Sites like Etsy, Kickstarter and even Paypal
have freed many from the need to make their living
feeding someone else’s dream, and instead live
their own.
Partially, too, the explosion of creatives is a result

of a world saturated by automation and chintzy,
dime-a-dozen goods and services. We are tired of
same old, same old, and yearn for simpler, more
hand-made times.
Uniqueness satisfies this urge.
Retro artwork, hand lettering, vintage finds,

personalized experiences of all types are beginning
to characterize commerce. Writers now help
companies tell “stories” about themselves; wedding
invitations are adorned with hand-painted flowers
and real calligraphy.
Daniel Pink elaborates on this in his book A Whole

New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future,
a powerful look at what makes creatives tick and
how they can leverage this natural advantage in the
coming decades.
In essence, people who can design well, tell great

stories, see connections, empathize deeply, create
new types of play and impart meaning will become

society’s new MVPs. They will bring solace to a
world scarred and exhausted by the soullessness of
the assembly line and the corporation.
But only – and this is a biggie – if you can get the hell
over it. Because with all this creativity and boot-
strapping and self-made-ness comes the age-old
fear of creating, facing judgment and being found
wanting.
To which I say: Who cares? We’ll discuss this more

in Chapter V, when we take a hard look at what
failure and fear really mean for your creative career
(hint: almost nothing), but for now, just know this:
Your time has come.
Many of us read such proclamations and think

“Awesome! I’m a creative! My time has come! She
just said so and she would NOT lie to me!”
Here’s the thing, though: I might lie to you. You

don’t really know, do you? You. Just. Don’t. Know.
And more to the point, turning a dream into a living

is, like, really hard.
This is due to many things, but mostly to an over-

emphasized and under-examined belief:

Do what you love the money will come.
Yes. Sort of. You’re on your way. If we could just

tweak this a teeny-weeny little bit. Maybe something
along the lines of:
Do what you love and perform research and make

plans and work your butt off and market yourself to
the right people and kick fear in the teeth and keep at
it for months and years … and the money will come.
Okay. That’s more like it. See, too many of us (myself,

until recently, included) believe the pervasive myth
that passion is enough, but it isn’t. If your passion
can’t fuel a tremendous amount of work, leap
hurdles of self-doubt and withstand the test of time,
then your dream may not have what it takes. If your
passion can’t prompt you to just get the hell over
fear and insecurity and create no matter what, then
it’s pretty weak stuff.
But I believe you can do it. The world is ready for the
uniqueness you have to offer, for your right-brained
badassery, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong
with your dream.
It’s those other parts that are hanging you up:

research, planning, practice, marketing, self-belief.
A willingness to kill yourself to make it happen. And

a decision to just let go of the negative thoughts
standing in your way, and go for it the way a toy
poodle goes for one of those giant, pointy-eared
Great Danes. They don’t stop to consider what
comes next; they just do it.
Now obviously, I don’t have all the answers, or even

most of them. But I’ve got a journalist’s mind and an
educator’s heart, and between the two I’ve figured
out quite a bit. I’d like to share what I know with
you, help you find a way to unkink the questions,
unmake the doubts and unlearn all the reasons you
can’t do this. Because you can.
I’ll help you:
»» Recognize the difference between dreams,

fantasies and byproducts
»» Get in touch with what really drives you
»» Learn to shoot for the right goal
»» Prioritize your creative urges
»» Get people on board with your dream and
dismiss the people who don’t support it (nicely,
with a smile)
»» Target your market, find your tools and learn
your trade

»» Learn to showcase yourself with the right
words and design aesthetic, and
»» Figure out how to figure it all out
I can’t make anything happen for you. But I can

give you some of my blood, sweat and tears in the
form of lessons I’ve amassed over years of trying to
make my own dreams as a writer and artist happen.
I’m finally on the right track, and my hope is that

I can help you get there much, much sooner than
I did. The truth is, it’s really not that hard to turn a
dream into a business. By the time you’re finished
reading this ebook, you’ll probably feel like you
didn’t learn that much you didn’t already know
(double negative, sorry).
So why the hell did I buy it from you, then?? you’re

wondering.
Because this ebook is going to give you permission

to believe in a dream that you’ve always thought
was small, silly, unrealistic or unworkable. I’ll
show you how to turn that little hope into a real,
viable business idea, and then build slowly from
there in a way that is lasting and measurable. You
know how the Empress in The NeverEnding Story

shows Bastian that grain of sand that becomes all
of Fantasia?
Yeah. It’s kinda like that. (If you don’t get that
reference, stop reading and go watch the movie
immediately. I can’t even talk to you until you do.)
And hey, it’s okay to do all of this slowly and quietly.

It’s okay to start small. It’s okay to do it even if you
don’t know what you’re doing, like I did. Like I’m
still doing.
Your dreams are real, and that means they’re

important. Realizing your creative dream is not
only possible, it’s likely … as long as you stick with
it. As long as you get the hell over everything that
doesn’t serve you. Stat.
So come on. Let’s do this.

ABOUT SARAH
My name is Sarah, but my friends call me … Sarah.

Sorry, I thought maybe I had something more
exciting to add there.
Guess not.
Anyway, I’m a design-loving book nerd who reads

whenever possible and writes for the thrill of it. Oh,
and also because it’s my job. I’m also the author
of Get the Hell Over It: How to Let Go of Fear and
Realize Your Creative Dream and Get the Hell Into
It: Stop Bouncing from Idea to Idea and Learn to See
Things Through.
I’ve also written two novels, which you can check

out here.
If I’ve learned anything in the last five years of

running my own business and writing all day, it’s
this: Y’all, making your dreams happen just ain’t as
108
hard as it looks. Not the business side, and not the
writing. (If you want to learn more about either, you
can head to my courses here and here.)
A bit more about, you know, my credentials? Well,

okay: I have a master’s degree in journalism from
Northwestern University and have worked as a
professional writer for the last seven years. In that
time I’ve gone from barely employed to supporting
my family and moving to Belize. I get to travel,
work in coffee shops all day, take pretty pictures
chronicling my writing journey on Instagram and
generally live the life of my dreams.
It’s awesome.
When I’m not hard at work reading and reviewing,

I’m playing with my two kids, doing yoga, cooking
or compulsively rearranging my bookshelves.

Get The Hell Past It

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AN EXCERPT FROM GET THE HELL OVER IT: HOW TO LET GO OF

If you have a pulse and the IQ of a tomato, at

Usually I would make a “and we all hate to love”

Because the topic at hand is failure. And failure,

Before we go any further, a public service announce-

Fact is, dreams die. Like, all the time.

Sometimes, that’s no big deal. Your dream to be an

Other times, it is a big deal. A really big deal. See,

But your failed startup? The Etsy shop you were

6 GET THE HELL PAST IT

A few other things not to do:

Give up once you fail.

Actually, I guess I just had one thing. Because,

Now, I get it. Watching a cherished dream wither

More often, we run away. As fast and as far as we

7 SARAH BETH MOORe

Put another way, how can you deal with your

This is the crux of this guide.

Failure hurts, I’ll say again. It won’t stop hurting.

To err is human. It’s normal to fail.

What is not so normal is to pick up and go on.

No one’s saying you have to do the same stupid

8 GET THE HELL PAST IT

For the sake of clarity, I will state at the outset that

The secret ingredient is this:

A desire to stop getting mired in your own misery

As long as that’s your goal, you’re in the right place.

9 SARAH BETH MOORe

By the time you’re done reading this, I want you to

Failure doesn’t have much to say to this, you see.

Even better, if you can learn to make friends

So let’s get started.

10 GET THE HELL PAST IT

These are some of my favorite go-tos for inspiration,

It would be disingenuous not to admit, however,

These require (or, if you prefer, invite) your partici-

11 SARAH BETH MOORe

You’ll notice throughout this book, in fact, that it’s

This book is all about telling those thoughts to take

Before we kill them and turn them into stew.

And now all that’s left is the disclaimer:

This book is not intended to replace therapy,

12 GET THE HELL PAST IT

I WANT YOU TO GET THE HELL PAST IT ALL.

It is my considered opinion that your projects and

“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?”

See, you totes feel better now, right? Okay then …

13 SARAH BETH MOORe

High on the list of Unenjoyable Experiences is

Sadly, it is also high on the list of Things That

Aside from the death of a loved one or dire trauma

For a good reason: Failure avoidance is very strong

You get where I’m going with this. Failure avoidance

The Boomerang Generation has proved that such

Suffice it to say, we have hundreds of thousands

15 SARAH BETH MOORe

Instead, we tell ourselves, “I am a failure.”

Aside from being a real buzzkill, this is a crippling

What motivation could a pronounced failure

(Sorry. I don’t actually have anything against PTAs.

Conflating oneself with one’s failure is truly debili-