I ran into an old work friend at a launch last night. We started out in publishing at the same company and she is now working for Marie Claire. For a second, I felt a twinge of envy. ‘Why aren’t I working at Marie Claire?’, I thought?

And then I realised it’s because I’ve never applied.

I applied for an internship program at Pacific Magazines in about 2002 (I didn’t get in because, quite frankly, I was hopeless and had an inflated ego from getting a lot of HDs at uni that translated into nothing useful).

The only other consumer mag job I have applied for was at Country Style mag and I managed – by miracle only – to get to the second round for an Editor’s job despite having exactly no experience.

Anyway, my point is that because of these early failures, I never applied again.

What an idiot!

I love my current job and I am incredibly grateful every single day that I get to work in publishing but I have always had a niggling feeling I should be trying harder, doing something bigger, making more of an impact (whatever that means).

I am sharing this because I wonder how many of us walk around thinking we’re not good enough, or have somehow failed, but without acknowledging the key fact that WE NEVER ACTUALLY TRIED.

If you want something, please, please, please give it a proper go. Fail with flair. Fail with conviction. Or succeed. That option only exists if you actually try.