Several years ago, my brother convinced me to start running.
What could go wrong? I thought.
So I got started — I even got a new pair of sneakers to mark the occasion.
And while the rest of the world was sleeping, I ran at night to accommodate my college schedule. And it was hard.
By the end of a run, my chest was heaving and I was covered in sweat. It wasn’t my idea of fun. Not at all. Not even close.
But I ran anyway because I had a goal in mind — I wanted to run a mile. I know, that might seem like a tiny goal.
Still, it wasn’t easy for me.
To accomplish it, I ran in the rain and in the cold. I ran when no one was watching — when it would have been easier to crawl into bed and… die.
Okay, I’m being overly dramatic. But it was hard. I’ll never forget what it felt like to run my first mile.
In the moment, it was all I could do to keep my legs moving forward. But when I collapsed, exhausted, on the grass beside the track, it had all been worth it.
All my blood, sweat, and tears had gone into that very first mile. And I was proud. So proud.
Effort matters more than being an overnight success
I learned something important from that experience: Overnight success is profoundly overrated. It seems that everyone is looking for a quick fix, an easy way to make millions in their pj’s in 30 days or less.
But I’ve learned that the harder path is the best one you can ever take.
Why?
Because there’s something incredibly beautiful about struggling and falling and getting up and continuing on toward your goal.
The harder it is, the more you have to want it. Something that’s worth getting is going to demand a lot from you, so you first have to understand why you want it.
When I was preparing to run my first mile, I had to face the fact that I couldn’t sit back and wait for some miracle that would make it possible for me to run a mile as fast as I could.
I had to work really hard to get there, even when I felt like throwing in the towel. Overnight success just wasn’t an option.
I had to sacrifice things that I would have preferred doing in the moment to accomplish what I really wanted in the end.
That necessary sacrifice is what makes your goals difficult to attain. But if you know why you’re doing something, you’ll have the strength to get through any obstacle in order to succeed.
If you’re willing to struggle and fall and get back up again and continue, it means only one thing — you’ve decided that what you want is bigger than the struggle and sacrifice it will take to get there.
And that makes you unstoppable.
You’ve done hard things in the past
Think back to the last time you did something really difficult that you thought you couldn’t possibly do.
Maybe it was passing an exam without studying or asking someone out for the first time.
Despite everything, you did it. And your inner critic is strangely silent. It’s an amazing feeling, isn’t it?
The truth is that if you keep working at something and don’t stop until you’ve met your goal, the road is going to be long.
Sometimes it may feel like your struggles are pointless. And there might even be people on the sidelines who tell you to give up because you’ll never make it to the finish line.
Here’s the thing, though: think of how proud you’ll be when you reach your goal if you don’t give up.
And the harder your goal is, the prouder you’ll be when you reach it.
Do you want to run a mile? Go for it.
Do you want to start a business? Go for it.
As the saying goes, don’t fear failure. Fear being in exactly the same place next year.
Fear looking back with regret and wondering what your life might have looked like if you had picked yourself up and continued on.
What I like to remember is that some of the most successful people who ever lived were in exactly the same place as you and me.
It’s true.
They were scared of failure.
They were afraid they weren’t good enough.
But you know what? If there’s one thing that helped make them successful, it’s that they kept going, step by step, year after year — even when they felt like quitting.
So if they can do it, you and I can, too.
We can attain our goals through consistent work and dedication, through refusing to give up on what we want most — even when the finish line is far in the distance.
And isn’t that better than overnight success?
