As children, adults teach us to work hard and behave, and when we do, they reward us. We learn early on that we can only achieve our goals when we work hard, and checking those goals off is the ultimate reward.
This mindset affects many of us in adulthood, too. We take on more shifts at our jobs, try to develop better relationships with our managers and spend lots of time studying for our courses. But while some of us achieve our biggest goals early, many of us continue to work hard but feel like we can’t progress towards our goals.
When we feel like we’re “stalling” in life, many of us wonder what the point is in trying when we don’t see any results.
It’s often disappointing when others don’t reward our efforts.
It feels like a slap in the face — we work our hardest only for others, only for them to not recognize our efforts. The uncertainty and embarrassment that come from our failure to meet our goals can feel so exhausting that we no longer want to try.
But if we focus on what we seem to lack or how we’re “failing,” then we don’t appreciate the skills that we gained throughout the journey.
When we continued to try in the face of failure, we gained a sense of motivation.
After all, when challenges arose, we wanted to beat them. We regrouped and faced the issues head-on. We became determined to move forward, no matter how slow our progress seemed.
In this process, we also learned the importance of discipline.
We focused on how good it feels to meet goals, which propelled us to stick to our schedules and work hard. And we also learned how to effectively manage our time and develop healthy habits that would make it easier to succeed in the future. With these skills, we can thrive — even when we feel like we fail.
As we worked towards our dreams, we realized how far passion can take us.
Hard work can’t exist without passion, and when we want to give up, our passion for our work keeps us going. When we feel passionate, we can tackle any issue because we care enough to keep moving forward in any way we can, even in the face of failure. Our passion shows us that our goals are always worth fighting for.
When we try to achieve a goal but don’t see the results that we want, we should try to remember all of the strengths we’ve developed throughout our journey. With motivation, discipline, and passion, we can move closer to our goals, even when they seem out of reach. We can still reach our goals, but when we fail, it’s important to gather all the strength we have and keep going. After all, the growth that comes out of failure is often the best reward.
