Remember This One Thing When You’ve Lost Hope

You’re trying and that’s good enough. It’s more than good enough.

You have post-its around your desk with aphorisms and social media collections of cheeky memes and inspirational quotes. You have a dream you’re chasing and you want it. You want it badly.

You understand that failure will be a part of your path, and you just keep reminding yourself that as long as you’re failing forward you’re good. You focus on getting 1% better every day. Just 1%. That’s all you need to know you are still working towards it.

Or as one of my best friend’s spin instructor said:

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like, you could be crawling on your belly towards it, as long as you’re moving forward, you’re getting there…

And baby girl, you’re getting there!”

Like I said, you’re trying and that’s good enough. But then it happens again, like it always does.

Good habits slip and you get distracted. Maybe you get a new romantic interest (or you lose one). The seasons’ change and so too do your energy levels. And then the worst thing happens: you start doubting yourself.

The belief you had in your capabilities plummets. You get caught up by self-imposed measures of success that aren’t stacking up the way you planned or hoped they would. You start seeing yourself as an obstacle to overcome, instead of the vehicle to pursue your dreams.

You’ve lost hope and you oscillate between feeling shitty about that and just straight up complacent: “Who was I to ever think I could achieve what I wanted?”. Here’s the one thing you must remember when you’ve lost hope:

You can’t not win at your life.

It’s your life. You’re the only one in charge of delineating what is in and out of your control.

You are the only one who can rise above the negative thought cycles (and hey, maybe you need medical or other professional intervention to assist with this… and that’s just fine). To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what YOU decide YOU need to do.

All that matters is you come to a rock-solid belief that no matter what happens, you trust that you can’t not win at your life.

Whatever winning looks like to you. That’s yours to define, discover, and trip over. It’s all yours.

Like you already know, there will be failure and hardships along the way. Things won’t work out the way you thought they would. But none of that matters.

The only thing that matters is that you remember this is your life. You can’t not win at your life. No one is in it the way you are. You make all the difference in the world.

So when you get down and dark (and you will) just remember this one thing: you can’t not win at your life.