Stooped, Stopped and Steadfast Claiming Your Victory

Define the goal, make a plan and set out for success; this is the customary preparation we have been trained to use when we follow a dream. Many times we stop short of success, detour somewhere else or just plain quit. What lies behind those changes that altered the course of a dream we believed in?

Obstacles and alternative opportunities are the most likely cause of a total shift in course. Obstacles are the challenges that continue to create uncomfortable bumps in the road, trenches to dig out of and stop signs that being to feel interminable. Most people relate stories about their interrupted journey that typically begin with the words, 'I was half way there and just couldn't go on.' The reasons vary from just plain tired of trying to the inability to see a clear way through an obstacle and beyond. Everyone who quits and turns around to go home has a personal story that accompanies their journey. The one thing that is immutable for every person who retreated back to where they began is the fact that they traveled the same distance back to accept defeat as the distance required to claim their victory. Half way is half way regardless of which way you decide to travel. The difference in how the story end is determined by the decision to stay the course and continue on.

The Navy Seal program is fraught with peril and incredibly difficult to complete. It is not uncommon for as many as ¾ of each class decide to ring the bell signaling they can't go on and quit. There is one rule no one is permitted to break. You can't quit until tomorrow, until you sleep on it, rest and can see clearly. For those who made it, tomorrow never came. They stayed the course and found the grit and the faith necessary to go the distance.

For everyone who continues on they usually discover that the path that was so difficult to navigate, the one that nearly broke their spirit, was filled with lessons that were required to sustain their win. The most difficult challenges were filled with things they needed to know to receive the greatest good possible. Their most difficult and painful stepping-stones assisted them in sustaining the tests that maintaining the win would present, ensuring it would be enduring and worth the training. When you stoop down to jump real high and stop you are poised to win and frozen in failure. When you feel like you are at the end of your endurance persevere and force yourself to make the jump in blind faith. Don't get stopped in the stoop!

If you accepted other easier opportunities you have simply chosen something less than the greatest glory that was your destiny. Life is always about choices. Sleep on them before you ring the bell to quit and travel the same distance back to failure or mediocrity as you could have gone forward to claim the victory.