Fear of failure and dreams of success

Lately AJ and I have talked a lot about careers, hobbies, life goals and placement in life. How to find joy in your job if you dislike it and how to have a job that you love. I have always had a bad habit of comparing my life to my friends when it comes to career and education. I graduated Rock Valley with my Associates degree and stopped there because I had a pretty ok paying job, got married, and found out I was happily pregnant. My plans of going back to school for a degree I wasn't passionate about and had no idea what to major in became an idea of the past. I have always had dreams and secret hobbies that I was too embarrassed to tell people because I was afraid of failure. I felt it was better to dream about the success than to try and fail. Afraid of losing the passion, why not just dream about it and never try instead. 

Now that I am a parent, and yes my son Eli is only 2 and Owen a newborn, I start young at trying to encourage chasing your passions. If you are good at something, go for it! God gives us all unique talents and passions for a reason. How can I encourage my children to follow their dreams, if I am too afraid to chase mine? I encourage my friends all the time to not just settle, but to try and find how to use their talents to be able to provide for themselves. I understand that this isn't always possible. Providing financially solely on the things that you are most passionate about can be really hard. Some passions really don't bring in much money or it will take a long time to bring in any. Yes, when having a family, it's smart to make informed and educated decisions, but we only have one life. Why not do something you love and be happy? 

Long story short, I am starting to work on my secret passion of writing children's books again. This might not seem much to some, but is a huge love of mine. I could read, and do read, children's books all day. I love the imagination, rhythm of words, rhymes, and morals in these books. I have several fears when it comes to writing them, such as, I am a terrible writer and bad at editing. I can not spell for the life of me. I can not draw, so illustrations would be impossible for me. I really am just bad with words. The only thing I have going for me is that I have stories and a big imagination. I don't have a style of stories or even really a theme that connects the stories, which many writers do. All I have are stories and ideas. 

Anyway, I believe that at least writing them down, praying about it, and seeking help could get me to the next stage of children's book writing. I need to be ok with the fact that I may fail and may fail several times. There will be people who do not like my stories and I need to be confident in myself to stand by my work. I am hoping that everything will lay out when I seek for help in different areas. I couldn't be more thankful to have such a supportive husband who is there to back me up and encourage me when I am feeling unmotivated and under qualified.