Tag: Consistency

The Cost Of Comfort

We all have our own creatures of comfort, and we slip into them whether we are aware of their cost or not.

Some of us like to sleep in, hitting the snooze button one more time.

We skip the workout in favor of one more episode.

We order takeout instead of cooking dinner at home.

None of those choices seem expensive.

In fact, they feel free.

More than that, they feel like relief.

A much-needed break from the stress of everyday life.

So why do they feel free?

Because the bill doesn’t arrive today.

Comfort rarely asks us to pay up front.

Its cost is delayed.

The workout you skip today quietly becomes declining health tomorrow.

The takeout becomes habits that are harder to break.

The snooze button slowly turns into lost time.

Comfort isn’t free.

It’s simply financed by your future.

On the other hand, discipline isn’t free either.

Getting up early costs sleep.

The workout costs time and energy.

Cooking dinner takes more effort than driving through a restaurant.

Writing the page means giving up something else you could have been doing.

Discipline asks you to pay first.

The difference is what happens after the payment.

Comfort creates debt.

Discipline creates investments.

Both require something from you.

Only one pays dividends.

Comfort feels inexpensive today, but often becomes costly tomorrow.

Discipline feels expensive today, but often becomes priceless tomorrow.

Whether it’s your health, your marriage, your parenting, your writing, your career, or your faith, they all follow the same principle.

Every meaningful part of life has a price.

The only question is when you’re willing to pay it.

Most people spend their lives trying to avoid discomfort.

Trying to avoid pain.

But maybe the goal isn’t avoiding pain at all.

Maybe it’s choosing the pain that leads somewhere.

Because life never asks whether you’re willing to pay.

It simply asks when you’d like to settle the bill.

Every decision comes with a cost.

The only choice we really have is whether we pay today…

…or tomorrow.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that continue the conversation:

The First Time Doesn’t Count

Everyone remembers their firsts.

Most people take time to celebrate those occasions.

Maybe it’s the first workout, after telling yourself so many times that you were finally going to make it to the gym.

The first blog post, after dreaming about launching a blog for years.

The first kiss of a budding romance.

The first day at a new job you had always hoped to get.

The first time your child sleeps through the night… and so do you.

We love our firsts, and rightfully so.

They are memorable.

They are exciting.

They feel important.

And they are.

But maybe not for the reasons we think.

Those firsts deserve to be celebrated because they take courage, effort, and determination.

But the first workout doesn’t make you healthy.

The first page doesn’t make you a writer.

The first trip to the coffee shop with my boys didn’t make it a family tradition.

What firsts do is introduce you to possibility.

They show you what could happen.

Who you could become.

So if our firsts don’t change us…

…what does?

The second time.

The tenth.

The hundredth.

Because repetition turns singular events into habits.

Habits into patterns.

And patterns eventually become identity.

You stop saying, “I worked out last night,” and become someone who works out.

You stop saying, “I wrote a blog post,” and become a writer.

Your identity isn’t built by dramatic firsts.

It’s built by ordinary repetitions.

My first post didn’t become The Young Napoleon Project.

But dozens of posts later, I’m beginning to build something.

My first workout didn’t change my body.

But weeks of showing up are beginning to.

One walk with my boys…

One trip to the baseball fields…

One bedtime story…

One Band-Aid on a skinned knee…

None of those things made me a father.

Showing up every day for my boys and being present in their lives did.

First comes the individual event.

Then a pattern begins to emerge.

And finally…

…an identity is born.

Maybe you’ve been waiting for a first.

Waiting for some dramatic moment that changes everything.

But the first isn’t what changes you.

So do the workout.

Write the blog post.

Have the conversation.

Take the walk.

Then do it again.

And again.

And again.

See what happens.

See who you become.

Because while the first may not change everything…

It matters.

Every meaningful life begins with a first.

But meaningful lives are built by refusing to let the first become the last.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that continue the conversation:

  • Day One — Every meaningful journey begins with the courage to take the very first step.
  • The Decision Was Already Made — The choices that shape our identity are rarely dramatic. They’re the ones we quietly make over and over again.
  • The Difference Between a Hobby and a Calling — The pursuits that matter most become part of who we are through years of faithful repetition.
  • Kids Are Born Delusional — Before repetition can transform your life, you have to believe that transformation is possible in the first place.

The Work Before the Vacation

Everyone knows the feeling right before vacation.

It’s Friday morning. You get to work, unload your bag, open your computer, and stare at the login screen. You have eight hours until your vacation begins and more work than you can possibly accomplish in that amount of time.

Now, I think there are two kinds of people when it comes to preparing for vacation from work.

The first kind plans out the week ahead of time, schedules their tasks, and ties a nice little bow on everything before sending their out-of-office email at 5:00 and heading off for the week.

Then there’s me.

I get information overload. There’s so much to do that I don’t know where to start, so I do what I always do—I procrastinate.

Then Friday comes, and I have to squeeze it all into one day.

The miraculous part is that somehow all the work gets done.

So I never really learn the lesson.

I just end up with one really stressful day.

In reality, there’s a part of us that has been dumped on by a coworker before.

They leave for a week, and after you’ve already gone home for the day, an email arrives with a long list of tasks they could have handled before they left. Instead, they become your responsibility.

So you do them.

You don’t complain.

Nothing changes.

There’s a part of you that thinks, Why don’t I just do the same thing? Let tomorrow’s problems become tomorrow’s problems… after I’m already gone.

Maybe you can.

But I can’t.

That’s not how I was raised.

That’s because I’m not really preparing for vacation.

I’m preparing to leave.

And though it’s subtle, there’s a difference.

Vacation mode is carefree.

You roll with the punches.

You see where life takes you.

But to truly enjoy that kind of freedom, you have to leave in a way that doesn’t keep pulling your thoughts back to everything you wish you had done before you walked out the door.

I started thinking about it, and this really has very little to do with work.

When we leave my parents’ house after the kids have been playing, we pick up the toys because we don’t want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up.

When a game is over, coaches put away the equipment because the next team shouldn’t have to clean up after them.

When you go hiking, you pack out what you packed in because the wilderness isn’t your dumping ground—it’s home to countless plants and animals that deserve your respect.

The situations are different, but the principle is the same.

Leave things in good condition for the people who come after you.

Maybe that’s what we’re really responsible for.

Making our absence as easy as possible for the people we leave behind.

It’s more than respect.

It’s common decency.

And it isn’t just about vacations.

It’s about every departure.

When I leave a meeting, did I contribute in a positive way?

When I leave the house, did I leave it better than I found it?

When I leave a relationship, did I leave with honesty and respect so the other person isn’t left wondering what happened?

When I move from one season of life to another, can I honestly say I served the people around me well before I moved on?

Today at 5:00, I clocked out of work, and I won’t be back for a week.

I plan to relax.

To write.

To read.

To work out.

To spend time with my family making memories.

But I’m only able to enjoy those things because I know I did everything I reasonably could before I walked out the door.

Sometimes life isn’t just about where you’re going next.

Sometimes it’s about how you leave the things—and the people—you leave behind.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that continue the conversation:

The Decision Was Already Made

Yesterday was a long day.

I’m on vacation next week, and I have a mountain of work to get through before I leave the office on Friday. I was tired by the time I got home, and even more so after we all went to the baseball fields to play before walking back home to get the kids to bed.

But then I got changed, I grabbed my headphones, I walked out to the garage, and I started my workout.

And I realized something.

I didn’t even have to think about it.

I just did it.

I have spent the last couple of months trying to convince myself every night that I should go work out. I have spent the last couple of months telling myself that the casual walk around the neighborhood with the boys or taking them to the fields so they could run around counted as a workout and that I didn’t need to go lift weights.

But then a few nights ago, I made the choice to go out there. I had some outside motivation because I am now working with a personal trainer, but I still had to walk out the door and lift the weights for the first time in months. I was sore. It was so much harder than I remembered. But I did it.

Then I did it again the next night.

And the next.

And then last night, I didn’t have to convince myself. There wasn’t a negotiation with my recliner or a debate with the television.

The decision had already been made.

I was heading out to the garage to work out.

I’d like to say the decision was easy.

I’d like to say that weeks or months ago I decided I needed to get in better shape and simply started.

But that’s not what happened.

I’ve known for a long time that I needed to invest in myself physically, and yet I didn’t.

I chose to watch television after the kids went to bed.

I chose to go back for seconds at dinner.

I chose to have snacks when I wasn’t hungry.

And I made a thousand excuses for those choices.

I’m tired.

I’m stressed.

I’ll do it tomorrow.

Then I would regret the decision after it was already too late to change it.

So what changed?

For me, it was committing to a personal training program.

I committed to someone else that I would put in the work.

That person wasn’t my wife.

It wasn’t my kids.

It was a stranger I met on the internet.

I don’t know why that was the thing that finally mattered.

But I do know this:

I went from struggling to make the right choice when it came to food and exercise…

…to having a few days in a row where I didn’t even see a choice.

The decision had already been made.

I don’t know how to turn that into a lesson everyone else can apply because I think we all have different triggers—different non-negotiable reasons for finally doing something we couldn’t bring ourselves to do before.

Mine happened to be accountability to someone I had just met.

Yours will probably be something completely different.

What I do know is that I never stopped believing there had to be something that would eventually make it click.

Even while I was breaking promises to myself almost every day, I never stopped hoping that one day I wouldn’t.

Does that mean I have changed forever?

I don’t know.

I’ve lost the weight before.

I’ve put it all back on before.

History says that’s possible.

I can’t promise that I won’t fall back into old habits because I don’t have the track record to make that promise believable.

What I can promise is that I won’t stop remaining open to whatever helps me become the person I want to be.

Because sometimes the breakthrough isn’t something you can force.

Sometimes it arrives because you kept trying long enough to recognize it when it did.

My hope for you is that you don’t stop looking for—or remaining open to—that catalyst in your own life.

Whether it’s exercise.

Writing.

Repairing a relationship.

Battling addiction.

Or finally beginning the thing you’ve been putting off.

I hope you find the thing that finally makes keeping the promise feel more natural than breaking it.

The point isn’t to become someone who never struggles.

It’s to slowly become someone who no longer has to negotiate with themselves every time.

Because eventually, the decision isn’t about who you could be.

It’s about who you are.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that continue the conversation:

The First Line Doesn’t Tell The Whole Story

Yesterday morning I stepped on the scale and the number had climbed right back to where it was when I started this project fifty-four days ago.

Mentally, it was a crushing blow.

For a few moments, I thought I knew exactly what kind of day I was about to have.

It’s amazing how quickly we do that, isn’t it?

We come into work and find an email we weren’t expecting. The morning meeting doesn’t go as planned. You and your significant other have a disagreement. The day gets away from you and you miss your workout or binge through all your calories in one meal. Your toddler isn’t listening and now something is broken.

Somehow and some way, we experience a disappointment, a failure, or an unexpected event early in the day, and what do we do?

We immediately start writing the ending to the story.

We begin forecasting what’s going to happen next, and it’s rarely in the classic Disney happy-ending kind of way. Instead, we imagine the worst. We convince ourselves the day is ruined, the relationship is in trouble, the goal is slipping away, or that we’re somehow back at the beginning.

One sentence…

…and suddenly we’ve decided how the whole book ends.

But then something interesting happens.

Later that evening, we look back on the day and realize it wasn’t the disaster we imagined.

The unexpected email became an opportunity.

The meeting ended early and gave us time we didn’t expect.

The disagreement turned into a conversation that brought us closer.

The workout happened later that night instead of first thing in the morning.

The broken toy was fixed, and maybe the lesson learned was worth more than the thing itself.

The dark ending we had already written somehow gave way to brighter skies.

Not because life always goes our way.

But because we aren’t nearly as good at predicting the ending as we think we are.

Too often, we decide the day is going to be bad before it has even had the chance to become good.

We let one conversation become a roadblock in a relationship.

We let one mistake define our ability.

We let one setback convince us we’ve lost all our progress.

We presume to let one chapter—or sometimes even one sentence—dictate the ending of the entire book.

But one event isn’t enough to determine the outcome.

Life keeps unfolding after that first disappointment.

The story keeps moving after that first setback.

And too often…

…we stop reading while life is still writing.

Yesterday morning, the scale gave me one sentence.

By the end of the day, I had visited with extended family, spent unexpected time with Jillian over coffee, published another article, kept my commitment to work out, tucked my boys into bed, and ended the evening with some quiet reflective time.

That first number wasn’t wrong.

It just wasn’t the whole story.

Neither is the unexpected email.

Neither is the difficult conversation.

Neither is the missed workout.

Neither is the bad meeting.

The first thing that happens to you today isn’t qualified to tell you how the story ends.

Because tomorrow’s chapter hasn’t been written yet.

And today’s story is still being told.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, here are a few more reflections that explore how the stories we tell ourselves shape the lives we live:

  • The Story Behind Tomorrow — Every visible beginning is built on invisible preparation long before anyone else notices.
  • Winning the Wrong Argument — The internal conversations that keep us from taking the first step.
  • The Reset Never Came — Why waiting for the perfect moment often keeps us from making progress at all.
  • Day One — Every meaningful journey begins with the decision to start, even before you’re ready.

The Story Behind Tomorrow

Do you have something that starts tomorrow?

Something you’ve been looking forward to. Something that fills you with the same nervous excitement you used to feel on Christmas Eve, the night before your birthday, or the day before leaving on a family vacation.

Whatever begins tomorrow has the potential to change your life.

Months from now, if you stay committed, people might notice the weight you’ve lost. They might see a stronger physique, a finished book, a thriving business, or a website that didn’t exist before. Maybe those are just the things I hope to see in my own life, but whatever your “tomorrow” is, people may one day look at it and say, “That’s where it all began.”

But they’ll be wrong.

Tomorrow isn’t really the beginning.

When does change actually begin?

It’s not with the first workout or the first pound lost on the scale. It’s not when you finish the first chapter or publish your first article online.

Those might be the first signs of change.

But change starts in the invisible moments.

Think back to the first time you admitted something needed to change. When you wondered whether you really had the strength to commit to something new. When you looked at your schedule, counted the cost, said goodbye to certain habits, quietly hoped this time would be different, or finally found the courage to ask for help.

No one thinks of these as the moments where change began.

But they’re the reason tomorrow exists.

We all make the same mistake.

We celebrate the first visible milestone as the start of something new, when those milestones are really just evidence of work that has already been happening in the shadows. The mental work. The preparation. The research. The internal struggle between the anxiety of trying something new and the comfort of remaining the same.

We celebrate the harvest.

We rarely celebrate the planting.

That’s because people don’t see the author before they see the book. They don’t see the business before the doors open. They don’t see the graduate before the diploma or the marathon runner before mile one. Every visible achievement is the product of invisible work.

So tomorrow you may be starting something new. It may be Day One for you.

People may think that’s where your journey begins.

But they’re only seeing the first visible page…

…of a book you’ve already been writing.

The moments that change our lives are rarely the ones everyone notices. They’re the quiet decisions made in solitude and silence. The commitment you made to yourself while sitting alone. The preparations you made when no one was watching. The choice you made before you even knew whether you could change.

Tomorrow may be the first thing people see.

But it isn’t where your story started.

Continue the Journey

If this idea resonated with you, here are a few more articles that continue the conversation:

  • Day One — Every meaningful journey begins with the decision to start, even when the path ahead is uncertain.
  • The Reset Never Came — Why waiting for the perfect time to begin often becomes the biggest obstacle to making progress.
  • Winning the Wrong Argument — The internal conversations that convince us to delay the very life we’re trying to build.
  • I Finally Stopped Waiting to Feel Motivated — Lasting change doesn’t begin when motivation arrives; it begins when we choose to act anyway.

Winning The Wrong Argument

Every time I make a decision that I later wish I hadn’t, there is a conversation first.

It’s never out loud. It’s that everlasting debate that goes on inside my head, like the old cartoons where the devil sits on one shoulder and the angel on the other.

The angel says, “Let’s go work out. Stick to the diet. Work on the book.”

The devil is quick to respond.

“I’m tired.”

“I’ll start tomorrow.”

“Just one more snack.”

“You’ve had a long day.”

“You deserve a break.”

And before long, the devil has won the argument before the angel even saw it coming.

The interesting thing is that the devil never tries to convince me my goals aren’t important. He simply convinces me that today should be the exception. That one workout won’t matter. That one evening without writing won’t make a difference. That tomorrow will somehow be easier than today.

We imagine discipline as something silent. As determination. As strength. As if it never questions itself.

But discipline has a voice too.

Every day, it’s an argument between comfort and growth; an unending debate between two versions of ourselves.

The issue is that the antagonizing argument isn’t wrong.

We are tired.

We are overly stressed.

We are busy.

We’ve had a long day.

With everything going on, we are overwhelmed.

The argument isn’t irrational. It’s real.

And that’s exactly why it’s so convincing.

That’s why the devil is usually the favorite in the debate.

Because the argument makes perfect sense.

But when the argument that makes the most sense in the moment wins—when tiredness and overwhelm overcome extra effort—the win is actually a loss.

You have won the right to sit in your chair and watch television.

To skip the workout.

To leave another chapter unwritten.

To put things off until Monday.

You won the argument.

The problem is that life doesn’t keep score by arguments won.

It keeps score by actions taken.

The workout doesn’t happen because your excuse was convincing.

The book doesn’t gain another chapter because you made a good case for waiting.

The life you want isn’t built by the reasons you had for delaying it.

It’s built by what you actually did.

You won the argument…

But you lost the war.

For years I put the diet off until Monday, watched television instead of writing, searched for perfection instead of progress, and waited for inspiration and motivation to drive my efforts.

And I had an argument for myself every single time.

An explanation that made complete sense.

One that I accepted as good enough.

As truth.

Years later, I was still stuck in that endless loop.

The thing is, the devil on your shoulder never really goes away.

That conversation happens every day, with every decision and every choice.

The difference isn’t that the voice disappears.

The difference is that it no longer gets the final vote.

Because once you recognize the argument for what it is, you have a choice. You can keep winning the same debate you’ve won a hundred times before, or you can finally let the other voice finish speaking.

Because the most dangerous arguments aren’t the ones we lose.

They’re the ones we win while arguing against the life we actually wanted.

So be careful which arguments you win.

Some victories cost far more than they’re worth.

Continue the Journey

If this article resonated with you, you may also enjoy:

The System Isn’t Sacred

Yesterday I had to admit something I didn’t want to.

The Young Napoleon Project wasn’t going to become the project I had spent the last ten years imagining.

That was surprisingly hard to accept.

Not because the project was failing.

But because the picture I had carried in my head for a decade wasn’t real anymore.

For years I had envisioned every detail of this project. I had planned the action tracking, the scoreboards, the data collection, the documentation, and even redundancies for the redundancies because I wanted to capture everything. I wanted complete control over the process.

Then I finally launched the project.

And after six weeks of actually living it, I realized something I never could have learned while planning it.

It was too much.

Not because I wasn’t willing to work hard.

Because I had built a system that demanded so much attention that it was beginning to compete with the very life it was supposed to support.

Somewhere along the way, I realized I was spending so much time documenting the project…

that I wasn’t actually living it.

So I started removing things.

I eliminated redundant tracking.

I simplified my systems.

I stopped documenting the same information in multiple places.

Not because those things were bad ideas.

Because they were getting in the way of the things that mattered most.

They were taking time away from my writing.

They were taking time away from the fitness goals I had allowed to slip.

They were taking time away from being present with my family.

Making those changes should have been easy.

Instead, it felt like I was giving something up.

The strange thing about plans is that after we’ve lived with them long enough, they stop feeling like plans.

They start feeling like promises.

We convince ourselves that success isn’t simply reaching the destination.

Success becomes following the exact route we imagined.

That’s where we get ourselves into trouble.

We become so committed to the process that we forget why we created it in the first place.

Businesses can’t cling to outdated processes simply because they’re familiar.

Parents constantly adjust routines as their children grow.

Travel plans change.

Careers change.

Life changes.

The people who continue moving forward aren’t the ones who never change their plans.

They’re the ones willing to change them when reality demands it.

For a while, I thought abandoning parts of my original plan meant admitting I had been wrong.

Now I think the opposite.

Those ten years weren’t wasted.

They gave me the vision.

But once the project became real, reality became a better teacher than imagination.

The system was never the project.

The scoreboards weren’t the project.

The trackers weren’t the project.

The spreadsheets weren’t the project.

Those things were simply tools meant to help me become the person I wanted to become.

And when the tools stopped serving that purpose…

They needed to change.

Six weeks ago I started this project with what I believed was the perfect blueprint.

Less than two months later, much of that blueprint no longer exists.

The dream does.

I chose the project over the systems.

I chose writing over documenting.

I chose to make room for my health instead of protecting routines that were no longer helping me.

For ten years I thought protecting the blueprint meant protecting the dream.

I finally realized they aren’t the same thing.

The blueprint can change.

The dream doesn’t have to.

Continue the Journey:

If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:

A Life, Not a Collection of Parts

It’s easy to divide life into separate categories—work, family, health, hobbies—but the most fulfilling life isn’t built by keeping those pieces apart. It’s built by learning how they fit together.

I Finally Stopped Waiting to Feel Motivated

Waiting for motivation kept me standing still for years. Progress finally began when I stopped chasing the perfect feeling and simply started doing the work.

The Coach Can’t Do the Work

The right tools, the right systems, and the right coach can all help you move forward. But in the end, no one else can do the work that only you can do.

The Coach Can’t Do The Work

I am going to be starting a personal training program in the next week or so, and yesterday I had my first call with my trainer. Being honest, I was nervous. I had never worked with a personal trainer before, but the conversation was great and also a little unexpected. Instead of just talking about exercises and nutrition, we talked about my goals, the habits I want to build, the mental aspect of getting healthier, my history with weight, and what I hope to achieve in the future.

As exciting as the call was, and as motivated as I am to work with this trainer, I’m still the one who has to put in the work. That’s something I’ve struggled with my whole life when it comes to my health.

The trainer can write my workouts, answer my questions, help keep me accountable, and encourage me when I’m frustrated. But he can’t lift the weights for me. He can’t choose what I eat every day. He can’t walk the steps I need to walk. He can’t say no to the junk food or turn off the TV so I can go work out. He can be a guide, but I still have to choose to follow.

I’ve done it before. In what feels like a past life, I lost 170 pounds. I was determined. I was resilient. Then I wasn’t. Some of the weight came back, and with it came frustration and disappointment.

Since then, I’ve read books about motivation and discipline. I’ve listened to podcasts. I’ve watched countless videos. I know what it takes to get back to where I want to be.

Information has never been the problem.

Turning that information into action has.

Often we think success comes from the tools we use along the way. The right pen or computer will help us write more. The right planner will keep us organized. The right app will keep us on task. Maybe the right coach will finally help us reach our goals.

Those things absolutely help.

They make the path clearer.

But they can’t walk it for us.

This project has never been about finally discovering the secret that erased years of failure. There isn’t one.

The progress I’ve made has come from doing the work day after day. From refusing to quit when things got hard. From not accepting defeat when I fell behind. From allowing the process to evolve instead of abandoning it because I was too stubborn to change.

The tools I’ve chosen have helped me get this far, but they aren’t the reason I’m here.

This trainer will be no different.

He gets to be on my team. He gets to challenge me, encourage me, and help me decide what I need to do to reach my goals.

But I still have to do the work.

The tools you use can help you write. They can help you stay organized. They can help you stay on task.

But if you don’t do the work, the tools can’t do it for you.

A coach, a trainer, or an accountability partner can all cheer you on. They can believe in you, even on the days you don’t believe in yourself.

But when it’s time to do the work…

You’re the one who has to do it.

And when you do, you’ll have something no one can ever take away from you:

The satisfaction of knowing you earned it.

Continue the Journey:

If you enjoyed this article, you may also like:

  • I Finally Stopped Waiting to Feel Motivated
    Motivation may get you started, but lasting change comes from taking action even when you don’t feel like it.
  • Stay in the Game
    Progress belongs to those who refuse to quit. Once you’ve committed to the journey, the work still has to be done one day at a time.
  • Every Opportunity Begins With Risk
    Hiring a coach, starting a new program, or chasing a goal all begin with uncertainty. The next step is doing the work that turns opportunity into progress.

Stay In The Game

Last night was poker night with the Papa Pandas. Ten of us showed up for a Texas Hold ‘Em tournament. On the opening hand I made two pair and won a large pot. Then I didn’t win another hand for a very long time.

Eventually the table had dwindled down to four players, and my dwindling stack was the smallest of them all. If you had taken a poll around the table, I probably wouldn’t have been the favorite to come out on top.

But I stayed patient. I played my game, bet when I thought the odds were in my favor, and took it one hand at a time. I eliminated one player, then another, and eventually it was just me and the chip leader. I won a couple of smaller pots to even things up before catching an outside straight on the river and moving all in. He called with two pair, and I walked away the winner.

I didn’t win because I played every hand perfectly. I folded hands that would have become winners and played a few that I probably shouldn’t have. I won because I stayed patient and stayed in the game. The cards certainly helped, but they couldn’t have helped me if I had already given up.

It made me wonder about all the other things I’ve quit simply because I got behind. How many times have I stopped writing because the words wouldn’t come? Quit exercising because the scale didn’t move? Walked away from a sport because I wasn’t getting playing time? Given up because things simply became too hard? Not because I was destined to fail, but because success didn’t seem likely, and I mistook where I was for where I was going to finish.

Yesterday I wrote that seizing opportunity requires us to accept uncertainty before we can enjoy the reward. Today I’m realizing that’s only half the story.

Sometimes taking the risk isn’t enough. Sometimes the reward only comes because we stay around long enough for it to arrive.

If you quit trying to lose weight every time the scale goes up or refuses to move, you’ll never reach your goal.

If you abandon every project because the results aren’t immediate, you’ll never finish anything meaningful.

If you give up on every dream because reality doesn’t match the picture in your head, you’ll never become the person you hoped to be.

It won’t be because you weren’t talented enough or capable of working hard enough. It’ll be because you didn’t give yourself—or your dream—the time it needed.

Last night I happened to win the poker tournament. But that’s not what I’ll remember.

I’ll remember looking down at the smallest stack at the table and realizing that as long as I still had chips in front of me, the story wasn’t over.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is stay in the game long enough to find out how the story ends.

Continue the Journey:

If you enjoyed this article, you may also like: