Keep going, don’t quit

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

Some days are tough and the challenging days make you cough a lot. Some seasons are rough and tough. You come to the end of the day and you are exhausted, drained and discouraged.

Sometimes it feels like you are banging your head against a stony wall.

I have had many such days. Being disappointed is being appointed for greatness if you keep trying.

There are days when I am tempted to quit and run. What would that accomplish? Never quit simply because things are tough, nor because the terrain is rough and the ride is bumpy.

Easy street is closed for good. The short-cut to greatness is through dogged trying terrain.

Refuse to give up. When you come to the end of a terrible and tough day, remember there is tomorrow and another day break waiting for those who will dare get up and face the day.

You do not need to rant and throw tantrums. All you need is to have the quiet confidence that you can wake up to try again.

Do not give up. There is tomorrow.

Maya Angelou — a woman of great depth and intelligence, civil rights activist, poet and author — once said: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”

There is no event that you should ever permit to reduce you into a shadow.

There are things that you can control and  others that will happen to you despite your best intentions.

Whatever happens to you, determine that you will not allow anything to reduce you, run over you and leave you despondent.

It is a choice. It is not what happens to you that matters most but how you choose to respond to whatever happens to you.

Keep going and do not quit.

Commit to greatness and keep going despite the set-backs and surprising set-ups. Commit yourself to a daunting goal, a worthy dream and a magnificent obsession. Stop looking at life through the eyes of fear, failure and any faulty logic of popularity contests.

Stop trying to impress people that are not watching and have their own problems to deal with. Nobody who tries to do something great and fails is ever a total failure.

Failure is nothing but vital feedback and a tonic for greatness. Just the mere courage to try is a step towards greatness. Whenever you attempt anything, you are already a winner because it takes winning against your doubts, beliefs and other hurdles.

You cannot get feedback doing nothing.

You cannot learn without making an attempt. Many people would rather complain, talk, comment, threaten, criticise, grumble and bemoan except taking action, getting into the water, making a difference and trying.

The words of Nelson Mandela ring ever so true when he said: “I learnt that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

Look around your life and if you find anyone trying to do something big, to make a difference in some way, do not laugh at them but applaud them. Put the mission on the front seat and your ego at the boot (if there is space). Never let critical eyes of people stop you from pursuing your greatness.

Never smart too long in your ego when something does not yield the expected results.

Get up and attempt something greater and bigger than you have ever done.

This is no season for little dreams and expecting pity. You cannot dance with the elephants when you want to be treated like an ant.  Keep pushing, keep going, keep trying and keep working.

Every step forward builds the momentum.

Refuse to live an empty life without struggle, effort and challenge. Commit to action, movement, and massive deeds that matter.

Whatever happens you will learn.

Tell me of someone who has never fallen; such a person has not walked fast enough nor far enough.

Tell me of someone who has not had to stomach some heavy blows. Such a person has not been in the arena of battle and has not done anything worth talking about. Tell me of someone who has not had to deal with shame, challenge or struggle; such a person is not a winner but a coward.

Life if you are charging ahead, keeps you humble. Greatness keeps you struggling, fighting, learning, rising, and growing.

Keep going, keep moving and do not stop thinking, attempting and trying.  If anything strikes you to the ground, dust off the experience with a smile and rise again.

Keep going, trying and moving.

Since 1967, Dr Paul Stoltz has been studying how people respond to adversity. He has tested this thought with organisations across the world and developed a measure of intelligence that he calls Adversity Quotient (AQ).

This is a measure of how people perceive challenges and how they deal with them. Dr Stoltz defines people with high AQ as having three key traits:

1. They do not blame others for adversities or setbacks they confront.
2. They do not blame themselves either; they do not see setbacks that occur as reflecting poorly on themselves.
3. They believe the problems they face are limited in size and duration, and can be dealt with. The great thing about Adversity Quotient is that it is not limited to a few select people, but it can be developed.

You have to intentionally make the choices that move you forward.

Do not bother wasting your life pointing fingers at other people and blaming them for your lot in life. Whoever you blame you empower to control your life.

Stop the blame game because it will not take you anywhere.

The blame game keeps you from graduating from the school of hard knocks.

There are many ways to look at any situation.

One of them is the finger pointing perspective where you see all the things that are wrong and blameworthy.

Indeed, many things are wrong, can be wrong, and do go wrong.

Most things that people complain about are well known and not any special wonder. Quit recreational complaining and habitual finger pointing.

Stop the blame game early.

Stop pointing fingers and start engaging in fruitful difference making action.

Stop even pointing fingers at yourself and wallowing in guilt, shame, fear, bitterness, cynicism and any other dis-empowering personal acts.

There is no bravery in thinking like a victim, talking like a scapegoat and planning like a hunted person. There are no accolades for cowardice and succumbing to fear and blame. There is no glory in retreat, inaction and inertia.

Get up and keep going.

It is time to unleash your greatness and not your diatribe. People with a high AQ believe that the problems they face are limited in size and duration, and that they can be dealt with.

Now that is empowering and a critical frame. Whatever the number, or size of challenges that you face, they are limited in some way. Like any mountain there is always a way to climb that mountain or at least to cross or tunnel under it.

Any challenge that you face has a duration, therefore determine to outlast it. It will not be there forever. Stop making permanent decisions at the altar of temporary challenges.

Keep going. No problem lasts forever. No difficult situation is permanent. Everything has a solution. It will come.

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and growth mentor. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and his website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com