When we finish a goal, it can feel like a relief. If it’s a challenging goal, it can feel like we’ve ascended the top of a mountain, reaching the unattainable, and when we look down at the vista below, we’re astonished and amazed at far we’ve come to reach the top.
All the struggles and trials that came with getting there are washed over, forgotten like it was from a different time in our lives. When we’re ascending the cliffside, however, so often we want to stop, to give up and turn back around. It’s like the path is unreasonably stubborn, precarious, and difficult, like every crevice and falling rock is a deterrent that’s telling us to go back, that the journey is not worth the risk.
In many ways, finishing a goal is moreover a mental test rather than a physical one. We could be in great physical shape and be healthy all around, but if we don’t have the mental fortitude to pick ourselves up when we fall, and to remain persistent even when it’s easier to stop and quit, then finishing that goal we’ve been dreaming for months–years–remains next to impossible.
Fallton Havenstonne 