Never give up

Are you a goal-oriented person? Do you have desires and dreams that you would like to attempt? Any experience of reaching for something, whether it’s a goal or dreams, will also, no doubt, acquaint you with setbacks. I would imagine that, if you’re like me, you’re tempted to look at those who have “made it” (whatever “made it” means to you) and you’re tempted to think that success must have come to them easily or at least with minimal struggle. After all, most of the time all we see is the end result. We don’t see the process that produced the result.

But count on it. EVERYONE faces setbacks and obstacles. Let me define “everyone;” I mean everyone, every person, every individual, every winner, every success, every victor. You can bet the house on it.

Dennis Waitley recently told the story of a laundry worker who earned $60 a week. He didn’t want to be a laundry worker; he wanted to be a writer. His wife worked nights and while she was at work, he typed manuscripts and sent them off to possible publishers and agents. Each of them came back with the same standard form letter: “Sorry, but no thanks.” He possessed a growing suspicion that his hard work hadn’t even been read before the standard rejection letter had been mailed.

One day the standard form letter had a different slant. “Sir,” it said, while your current work does not warrant publishing, we believe you have promise and want to encourage you to keep trying.” Keep trying, he did, sending off two more manuscripts over the next year-and-a-half. But he stuck out with each one. In fact, as Waitley tells the story, their finances grew so desperate the young couple disconnected their phone in order to pay for the necessary medication for their young child.

Feeling discouraged and hopeless beyond comprehension, he tossed his latest work in the garbage. Thankfully, however, his wife believed in his talent and his dream. She picked the manuscript out of the trash and sent it to a publisher (it was the publisher who had sent the kind rejection). Doubleday liked it and the book, Carrie, was published, selling over five million copies. It got picked up as a movie and became a top grossing film in 1976.

Dennis Waitley’s lesson is worth remembering:

The main message: believe in your ability to turn obstacles into opportunities. Too often people try to storm their obstacles as if they’re forts that need to be taken. It’s better to step back and ask yourself, ‘Did I cause this obstacle by my own actions or lack of them? Did someone else cause this obstacle? Is this obstacle one that grew out of the natural progression of circumstances?’”

So let me ask the questions again: Are you a goal-oriented person? Do you have desires and dreams that you would like to attempt? Let’s decide together to not let setbacks to set us back, but to spur us on.

Oh, by the way, the laundry worker’s name was Stephen King