We all lose momentum on our endeavors. It is intoxicatingly easy to get excited with a sparkling new idea. It is often easy enough to plunge in headfirst and get started. But most — if not all — of our important projects will hit a wall, where part of our beautiful vision transforms into hard work and drudgery right before our eyes.
There is no magic pill to take to overcome that moment where you don’t want to continue. It simply takes persistence and will power. Don’t forget that. Believe that you can persist, and you can. Don’t give yourself an option of stopping until you get to that first finish line. Don’t forget that no project’s first finish line really turns out to be the final one. There will be an unanticipated phase two, and phase three, and phase four.
Here are a few quotes to consider and remember:
Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning.
— Denis Waitley
The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail.
— Napoleon Hill
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
— Calvin Coolidge
Zero to overnight success in seven short years.
— Optimism Man
All of us sometimes lose momentum on a worthy endeavor. Regaining the excitement and gaining momentum from a dead stop is very hard. I think the trick to get started again is to go to your personal fortress of solitude (mine is Starbucks because I just don’t have a nearby mountain peak to climb) and create a very detailed action task list to make a couple of first downs. Then pick a day to focus only on this one project and knock the tasks out in order, as though the deadline was just 24 hours away. Although I’m a big believer in the tortoise-wins-the-race formula, a big burst of action in one superhuman day is like a defibrillator that restarts the heartbeat of your project and establishes new momentum.
Stay Optimistic and Persistent, My Friends!
I.M. Optimism Man