The Reality Check: It Will Be Hard
You're absolutely right: chasing your dreams will be tough. It’s going to demand a lot from you — time, money, and effort. It’s going to test your patience, your resilience, and your sanity. You’ll feel overwhelmed, stressed, and wonder if it’s all worth it. And yes, you’ll probably fail. Maybe more than once.
But so what?
Failure Isn’t the Problem — Quitting Is
Does the fear of failure mean you’re going to quit? Does that make you stop chasing what you truly want? Are you so quick to throw in the towel just because the path is difficult?
If you find yourself nodding along, thinking that the effort isn’t worth it, then good. Less competition for the ones who are ready to endure the pain.
The Harsh Truth: Avoiding Difficulty Guarantees Failure
Avoid the difficult path. Avoid taking risks with your money. Avoid devoting years of your life to becoming the best version of yourself. Avoid it all, and you’ll have a 100% chance of one outcome: failure.
But if you’ve accepted that there’s a risk of falling flat on your face and you’re still willing to put everything on the line, you’re on the right track.
Adopt the Success Mindset: Make Peace with Failure
To succeed, you need to be comfortable with the idea of failure—repeated failure, at that. Because success is built on a foundation of lessons learned from countless mistakes.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have both made billion-dollar errors. If they can stumble and still push forward, what makes you think you’re exempt from the learning curve?
Success is a Process of Elimination
Personal growth and business success work like a systematic process of elimination. You try, you fail, you learn what doesn’t work, and you refine your approach. This iterative process is what separates those who dream from those who achieve.
Let’s break it down:
Person A attempts a backflip but lands on their neck because they never learned the basics. This is failure.
Person B knows how to do a backflip but slips because the grass is wet. This is a mistake.
Person C learns from Person B’s mistake and completes the backflip, but it’s sloppy. They have deficiencies.
Person D masters the backflip after learning from both their own mistakes and the failures of others.
For Person D to reach this level, they had to endure the same failures and missteps as everyone else. They embraced the struggle instead of shying away.
The Question You Need to Ask Yourself
So, the real question is: Are you Person A, B, C, or D?
If you’re not willing to embrace the risk and manage the inevitable setbacks, then don’t even bother starting. But if you’re ready to face the pain head-on, then you’re exactly where you need to be.
Because here’s the truth: The only way to guarantee failure is to quit.
Final Thought: Success Isn’t Safe — And That’s the Point
If you want the rewards, you need to endure the struggle. You need to be okay with the setbacks, the financial risks, and the sleepless nights. You need to push through even when it feels like you’re not making progress.
Because success isn’t safe. It’s not comfortable. It’s not easy.
And that’s precisely why so few people ever achieve it.
So, if you’re still in, keep going. Because the only way out is through.
Great post Josh! Find myself in the exact same thought process now. My next post I'm gonna publish is along the same lines!