I still remember what it feels like to quit, knowing I could have.
Some of you know a little about my challenges with low esteem and confidence, especially as a younger man. Daily disciplined effort has helped me deal with this natural inclination. And so has the memories of the price. Countless times in my youth I quit prior to succeeding. Usually at the first sign of real difficulty (difficulty is natural in all learning and pursuits and should be expected and viewed as part of the process of success), because given my mentality at the time, I saw difficulties as affirming why someone like me couldn’t succeed. Several times this happened while I was actually succeeding! I literally walked away from things that I was doing well in. Sports, scholastics, opportunities, it didn’t matter. I was a quitter.
Once I developed an understanding that it was merely a matter of disciplining myself to persist, everything changed for me. This is why it is easy for me to say to you, that whatever your endeavor, if you will simply do the small disciplined steps each day, you will eventually have whatever level of success you desire. I know both sides intimately. And trust me when I say, the struggles in the discipline and the pursuit are universes better than the knowing you didn’t try and that you quit or even worse, were too chicken to start.
Jim Rohn said “All of the great rewards in life are available to each of us, if we will discipline ourselves to walk through those early stages of growth without neglecting any of the disciplines.” This is simple and absolute truth. The sowing of the seeds in your pursuit IS the discipline to undertake. It is how you achieve. Too often we get so caught in the enormity of the thing we want….in the distance between the place we are and where we want to be, that we forget that little steps each day will get us there. Robert Louis Stevenson gives us a great perspective “I consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvests I reap.” He clearly understood that the disciplined persistence of sowing the seeds, would assure the harvests in life.
When we fully get this…that a step at a time we can do awesome things….then we truly have taken the lid off of our possibilities in life. We can be free to go after what we desire.
“Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I will persist until I succeed. Henceforth, I will consider each day’s effort as but one blow of my blade against a mighty oak. The first blow may cause not a tremor in the wood, nor the second, nor the third. Each blow of itself, may be trifling, and seem of no consequence. Yet from childish swipes the oak will eventually tumble. “-Og Mandino
And for those inevitable seasons when it feels like we are working and working and working and there seems to be no advance, remember…
“Never give up.”-Winston Churchill
You will break through. It is only matter of persisting until you do.
