You’ve buckled down, and you’re doing it.
You’re pumped. You’re working hard, you’re making progress, and then something happens. Some road block gets in your way.
It might be a crunch for time, it might be a relative passing, it might be a landlord raising the rent, it could be a bad step and a busted knee, or anything else. Something unexpected will happen.
Setbacks Can Be Opportunities
In that moment, you get to decide what happens next. You can wallow in self-pity, you can blame yourself, you can blame the government, you can blame God, and you can complain that life isn’t fair. But that’s not going to help you reach your goals.
Life isn’t fair, that’s a given. We see the unfairness of life every day. Why should you get a free pass?
If you want to live your life in charge, this is a defining moment. This is when you have the opportunity to forego your right to complain. This is your opportunity to regroup, heal if necessary, and then keep climbing. If you are in charge of your life, then no person, no circumstance, no sickness, and no setback can keep you from creating the life you want.
Never Give Up
This is easier said than done. But when you get to this point, think of all of the people who have persevered rather than pointed fingers. The people we call heroes that pushed through instead of complaining.
People like Anthony Robles, who was born with one leg but still managed to win his weight class at the 2011 NCAA individual wrestling championship.
People like Stephen Hawking, who is almost entirely paralyzed and communicates through a speech generating device. Yet he has had a profound impact on the fields of general relativity and quantum mechanics, not to mention cosmology in general.
People like Oprah Winfrey, who was born to a teenage single mother in a poor rural area of Mississippi. Did you know she gave birth to a son at 14 (who died in infancy)? Did you know that as a little girl, she often had to wear dresses made of potato sacks because her family was so poor? Now she is one of the most influential women in the world.
J.K. Rowling was nearly broke, very depressed, divorced, and trying to raise a child on her own while attending school and writing a novel (Harry Potter — maybe you’ve heard of it).
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. But thanks to his determination, he’s now considered the greatest ever to walk the court.
What do these people have in common? Determination. They didn’t complain. They didn’t blame someone else, even when it would have been justified. They decided to reach their dreams in spite of the curveballs that life threw at them.
So what about you? I can’t promise that you’ll become world famous or super rich. I can’t promise you anything — but what are you promising yourself? Are you determined to fulfill that promise?
Recent Comments