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Just keep pushing forward until the results come.
Zig Ziglar tells a story of two guys out in the hot fields back in the day. They come across an old hand pump that use to work.
They pump for a while but nothing comes out. So they find a little water from a nasty creek to prime the pump. Then pump some more.
One guy says that’s enough, I’m done. But the other continues on. Because the deeper the well, the longer it takes to get to the top, and the better the water will be.
“Don’t give up, that water is coming says” the optimistic guy to the quitter. And they pump and they pump and they pump some more.
“I give up,” says the quitter and starts to walk away from his pumping duties.
“Don’t stop, that water is right below the surface. If you stop it will fall all the way back to the bottom and you will have to start again.” says the optimist. He convinces the quitter to stay and pump more.
They pump more and more. And finally, water comes out.
Once the water comes out, all they had to do was put a little pressure on the pump every once in a while to keep the water flowing.
The pump is like life. We have to pump and pump never knowing when the water will come out. It takes an amazing amount of work to get whatever you are doing to start flowing, but once you do, it only takes a little work to keep it going.
Do you ever want to be the quitter?
Last week I was that guy. I almost quit this 75 Hard Program go around at 30 days because I haven’t seen any progress. It’s painful to be on a diet and workout every day and not see anything happening. But I will continue for my 75 days and then reevaluate what I’m doing.
What about you? How many days or times will you work on something before reevaluating and moving on to something else?
You don’t have to be great to begin, but you do have to begin, to be great.
Get started, set a time of how long you will work on this one idea before you try something else. And when you set that time schedule, I’d like you to think about Dave Ramsey’s three rules of business:
- It will take twice as long as you think,
- Cost twice as much as you think,
- And everyone thinks they are the exception to the rule.
Go after your goal. Work on it every day. Set yourself a reasonable time limit and then double it. Work for that long, and then try something new.
Ben Branam