This year, I am giving myself permission to fail. Actually, I am requiring failure. I expect failure.  I will be very disappointed in myself if I haven’t failed many, many times by the end of this year.

Failure is how we move forward. Failure is how

we learn and create new things. Failure is how we grow our experience and enlarge our abilities. Intelligence and talent are great gifts but success comes from the ability to

fail and fail well.

Failing well is about persistence and holding your seat when things are difficult. Anyone who wants to live a creative life eventually comes to realize that persistence is more important than inspiration.

Last year, I blogged about Neil Gaman’s 2011 New Year’s Eve Wish but the words are so powerful they are worth sharing again, one year later:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Mak

e mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.