We all have dreams and hopefully we’ve all set goals to help us to achieve those dreams. But too often people become discouraged when they can’t achieve their goals as fast as they’d like and as a result they begin to give up on their dreams.

The reality of life is that most things end up taking twice as long as we’d planned on and most projects end up costing twice as much as we thought they would. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t doable! And frankly if you had known how hard it was going to be to achieve your goal and you’d understood how long it was really going to take you to achieve it, you most likely wouldn’t have tried to do it! So maybe it’s a really good thing that we go into our goals a bit naïve about how hard it’s actually going to be to achieve them. After all, ignorance is bliss starting out and by the time you realize how difficult its going to be you have put in so much work already that you aren’t about to give up now.

That’s exactly what happened to me. I started a company at the age of 23 thinking it would be pretty simple to start and grow a business. And by the time I realized how hard it was going to be I had already worked so hard for so long that I wasn’t about to give up, which led me to keep going and eventually achieve my dream.

One of my favorite jokes is a line by comedian Steven Wright where he says, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” It reminds me that we weren’t meant to have everything all at once. We need to work hard to achieve our goals and we need to go through a period that requires some sacrifice in order to truly appreciate our dreams when we finally achieve them.

Don’t get discouraged along the journey. Instead recognize that you can have what you want, just not all at once. So be willing to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when it feels like your barely moving at all, just keep taking one step at a time toward accomplishing your goals and eventually, when the time is right, you will achieve your dream. Just keep moving forward, and don’t forget to SMILE!

PS. It is going to be a GREAT WEEKEND so get excited!  YAY for sunshine 🙂

~Amy Rees Anderson