“In moments of sheer panic, when everything is in question, I wonder if all this insecurity and frustration is worth the cost of losing what I left. Couldn’t I just go back? Back to a steady job, one that paid the bills and let me off the hook for creating art? Couldn’t I just blend back in to the status quo?” – Jeff Goins – Today, I Want to Quit
“Instinctively resourceful and at ease.” Michael Carroll, author of Fearless at Work, defines this as the “kind of confidence that remains fearlessly unshaken in the face of life’s often terrifying paradoxes.”
In the past 4+ years of not walking into an office, not working for someone else, not having a guaranteed paycheck or sick days or PTO, I’ve learned more about myself than I could ever be able to define here for you. But perhaps more than anything I’ve learned that fear is real and you face it every single day.
Fear takes different forms and can drive you in different directions. It manifests itself at the height of success and at your moments of failure. A while back I talked about the ebb and flow of the entrepreneurial roller-coaster, citing that successful entrepreneurs don’t ever overcome their fear, instead, they effectively manage it.
My wife shared a quote with me recently that deserves repeating here from Winston Churchill:
“It is the courage to continue that counts”.
In a world that tells us to “just start” and “take the first step” what may be missing is the message to “keep going”.
And that, my friends, is a message we all need to hear.
When you publish something and no one reads it, keep going. When you launch a product and no one buys it, keep going. When those around you quit and move on, keep going. When you sign on an amazing new project, keep going. When you’re staring into your bank account wondering how much longer this can last, keep going.
It is the courage to continue that counts. And it is those that have continued that we continue to learn from, buy from, respect, admire, and follow.
Starting is easy. Continuing takes courage.