You have this great idea, and you cultivate it in your mind then figure out the goal you want to achieve. You even create a game plan with deadlines in order to complete it by a certain time. You’re working hard, then life gets thrown at you. As the deadline date for your goal draws nearer and nearer you panic because you are so far behind in your game plan. Nothing is going the right way. In fact, it seems like the world is preventing you from getting to that goal! But you keep trying.
Finally the day comes and with it comes all of the disappointment over the last several days, weeks, months or even years of planning and working because you didn’t achieve your goal. Frustrated you ball up those carefully laid out plans and throw them in the trash, because what’s the point? You tried and failed. It didn’t happen.
I know exactly how you feel! I made this amazing plan to finish my book by a specific date so I could publish it by the perfect time. I carefully mapped out my game plan with milestones and dates attached to each one. I hit my first milestone before my deadline! I did my dance and started on the next one. Then that deadline came. And went. Another milestone deadline came. And went. But I still hadn’t finished my previous milestone!
In fact, I missed five milestones and am two months behind! Ugh. As each day passed with not hitting that second milestone, it felt like the weight of the world was on me. It was hard to focus on other tasks because all I could think of was that I needed to finish the edits on my book.
Has anyone felt this frustration and just wanted to give up? I almost did. Fortunately, I had some really awesome people on my side who encouraged me to keep going. It isn’t about how you start, but about how you finish, and I was going to finally fulfill my dream of finishing my novel and publish it. I also knew that it is better to hold onto a project and get it right than to rush it out the door because you want to meet a deadline and it did not meet the level of excellence you know it could have been.
So, have you missed a deadline? Did you want to give up? Have you given up already? As someone who has missed plenty of goal deadlines and has given up on my passion of writing one too many times, let me encourage you to keep going. Pick up that passion again. Go for that dream again. It is never too late unless you give up and you aren’t a failure unless you stop.
Even if you don’t feel like doing it, do it anyway. There are days I don’t feel like writing and would rather watch murder mysteries while eating frozen pizza on the couch all day. But that doesn’t get me to my dreams (although you might catch me on a Saturday morning watching a murder mystery with my coffee!). On the days you don’t feel like it is when you should, even if it is just for 10 minutes.
As for my next step…I’m am doing a lot of research and learning on my end while I await feedback on my novel. The absolute thing I hate to do. Wait. Ugh times two. I’ll let you know how that is going.
In the meantime…don’t give up on yourself. I haven’t given up on you either! Let’s keep going to reach our dreams together. Cheers to you and your future success!