By: Iyo_Embong

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…it’s about learning to dance in the rain! – Vivian Greene.

Anytime you decide on the pursuit of an important goal, you’ll be faced with a series of challenges. Peaks, valleys and plateaus are par for the course. But the thing that separates the people who make it from the ones that don’t is the courage to stay on course.

At the start of any new endeavour most of us look forward to every single day with a child like excitement. We can learn a lot from children. I remember these words I read long ago that’s entitled “You and the Child”:

• When you are given great joy, go to the Child and let him share it
• When you suffer a great sorrow, go to the Child and let him console you
• When you are in pain, let the Child heal you
• When you are about to start a great enterprise, ask the Child to lead you
• When you feel full of courage, devote it to the Child so that he may guide it
• When you find a great treasure, place it at the feet of the Child so that he may preserve it
• When you are in doubt and have little faith, go to the Child that he may enlighten and strengthen you
• When you are afraid, ask the Child for courage
• Wherever you are, whatever you do, whatever you think, let the Child be you.

We see infinite possibilities and the future appears bright. It seems as though there is absolutely nothing that can get in our way. We feel almost invincible and the possibility of failure doesn’t even occur to us. We blow through every obstacle with a sense that we’re invincible. But, then we hit the first real roadblock! Our excitement diminishes and turns into frustration. The pursuit of that goal makes us feel as though we’re hitting our heads against a brick wall. We keep on hitting our heads until we realize that it doesn’t lead to anything other than a really bad headache, and the possibility of failure emerges. We wonder if maybe we should just quit in order to avoid the misery that failing will bring with it. But you realize deep down inside that anything worth doing requires the courage to fail. So we keep going.

In next phase of reaching that goal we hit what appears to be a plateau. It seems as though no real progress is being made. We go through the motions and everyday we think about quitting, but there’s a little flicker inside that lingers from the fire that burns so deep inside us when we want something so bad. We search for the courage to stay on course, and struggle to find it.

It seems like all we can really see is how far we still have to go. But if we take a look back, the view suddenly changes. Instead of seeing how far we have to go, we see how far we’ve come, and hope resurfaces. As a result we find the courage to stay on course and we keep going.

Soon, the voices of dream crushers, nay-sayers and self doubt emerge and we become tempted to listen. We start to wonder if maybe they’re right and that we are in fact losing this fight. But something inside tells us to drown at that noise and we find the courage to stay on course.

The finish line seems as though it’s nowhere in site and even the supposed light at the end of a dark tunnel seems to be a far fetched fantasy of wild eyed crazy dreamers. It doesn’t seem as though it’s too long before you really hit rock bottom. But there’s a beauty in rock bottom that gives you an opportunity to play the game as if you’ve got nothing to lose. So you look deep inside, and find the courage to stay on course.

One thing that always catch my mind every time I read or hear a person who have lived a victorious life is the way they managed to keep themself going when all hope seemed lost. When there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when things are so hard that giving up would have seemed the only sane option. It’s in those moments that the biggest breakthroughs, flashes of insight and moments of brilliance occur. But there’s only one way to find out…that’s by finding the courage to stay on course!

By: Iyo_Embong 2012©Copyright. Any distribution, reproduction or copying of any part of this article is forbidden. If you wish to use this article please only use the first 2-3 lines as an excerpt and link back directly to the article along with the Authors name.