The hard core road to success

The road I just came from is traveled less frequently by those who avoid it. The easy road is more likely to attract visitors.

In order to get to your destination, you need to choose.

This is not about bandaging up your wounds so you can wash the sweat from your brow and stay cool.

This is about fighting through the pain so you can overcome the insecurity that took over your life the day you stepped out in to the wilderness and lost the fight to find your way home.

The question is, where are you going?

Do you know where you want to be next year, five years from now, or even tomorrow?

If we all looked back behind us on the road less traveled, we'll see pain, hardships, failure, heartbreak, tears, and sweat. We'll also see glimmer of hope, sunlight in the distance, and the courage it took us to get where we are today.

If I dare look back in the road I came from, it was surely a dark one. There were no street lights to guide my path. The trees grew up over in a tunnel like fashion and kept the sunlight from straying inside. It was in darkness that I found my way out with my shut eyes wide open.

What is your goal?

Do you want to succeed?

Do you want everything handed to you to make it easier for your life or do you want to earn it?

Are you ready to earn it? Are you ready to dig deep in to the bottom of an empty pit, grab a shovel and start digging? Because that's what it takes to create success.

You won't find success at the end of a yellow brick road or even a red one. Success is knowing who you are, how you got there, and what it's going to take to get you to a place where you feel confident at all times.

Confidence is a place where you know you are right, so you don't have to fight in a mud pit on a rainy day any more. The pit is dug, and you drink the water from it. Your job is finished.

Some of us have been brutally beaten down by this thing called circumstance.

What will it take to accomplish the impossible if all we do is think about what we never had?

If all we do is dwell on how badly we were beaten, will we ever really understand what we've won?

Looking back at that place, where I once called home, it was a complete and utter nightmare. A place I wouldn't want to wish on another. It's so bad in fact, my mind has blocked it out. It's tortuous not knowing what happened to me for three years because my memory serves to protect and block. Like a fighter blocking blows in a boxing ring, my memory has become my ultimate defense. Because if I did look back, it would only serve to try to defeat the person I've become today.

It's going to get deep.

You will need some supplies to fight the good fight.

• Bottle of water to stay hydrated
• Waterproof boots to keep your feet dry
• Comfortable clothing to stay light
• Clean air to breathe deeply

The bottled water serves as refreshment when you thirst. Waterproof boots keep your feet dry and grounded to your perseverance. Comfortable clothing will keep you light and not weigh you down. Clear air will help you take in oxygen which will rejuvenate your mind.

Do not wait for tomorrow for the rain to stop today.

Get up and move on. Carry forth to your destination.

It's up to you to set sail. Do you have a goal? Start with one step at a time. Reach for the stars even though failure is likely. Try to catch a cloud even though it's too high up for you to climb.

It's through envisioning what you think you can do instead of giving up knowing what's too hard that creates successful opportunity and possible outcome.

It's not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that you need to concern yourself with. It's reaching the rainbow and riding it in to tomorrow.

There will be times when you think that you are actually walking in circles. You don't see a chance for better or worse. All you see is a circle and you are stuck on either side of it at different times.

Make your own exit ramp. Step back. What did you learn from the inner circle? Did you find strength in exiting from it? Did you feel more energized staying confined to the walls from within it?

You don't like to get your feet wet, so take your shoes off and dance in the rain barefoot.

You don't like muddy hands, dig in a garden without a trowel.

You have to learn to like what you don't want to do so you can become who you want to be.

This is the part everyone needs to understand. Confidence comes through doing.

If you don't like how your pants are fitting, start walking.

I got stuck in a rut. It's easy to complain about something because it's too much work to change it. Have you ever found yourself complaining about something that you have the power to change, but you rather sit around complaining about it any way?

Yeah, I do the same thing. Then I think to myself, what in the world was I wasting time sitting around here for complaining about something I have the ability to change?

Change doesn't come from saddling up a horse and riding out west. It comes from within.

The desire to change is a determination only you can give yourself.

Riding a horse isn't a bad thing either, if this was about riding horses!

Saddle up your mind. Ride in to the future facing the sunset. Don't worry about the rain clouds chasing you from your distant past.

We all have some expectations that are either well thought out or simply impossible.

It's when we expect from others that diminishes our likelihood of achieving our own success.

I knew a young woman about eight years ago who blamed everything wrong in her life on everyone else.

She had the power to change her mind, but she refused. She utterly failed in to despair and couldn't see the forest through the trees. When I tried to explain to her she had to look up to see the stars, she blamed me too.

Why? Because she refused to look at herself, her potential, her negative thinking, and the positive determination it would take to pull herself out of a situation. It would mean she would have to work for something which is why she consistently blamed others in the first place. It was easier to blame someone else for her failures than to walk the hard core road to success.

It starts with self. It's better to take the hard core road to success, then having to start backwards through a trail of uncertainty after losing everything you have and no confidence to know where the path began.

If you want it, it's waiting for you. You have to have the courage and determination to go get it.

Keep your eye on the reward. You can do anything you set your mind to doing. It will take time. It will take hard work. It's all about what you want and how far you will go to achieve it.

Don't quit.