“Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense.”
Thomas Arnold Bennett
I love to write: fiction, non-fiction, essays, books. But…there are times when
I hate certain aspects that are tied to the writing: research for book
proposals or transcribing interviews, for example.
I love to garden…but hate the long laborious process of getting the soil ready and then, in the fall, doing the major clean-up before winter sets in.
But I can’t have one without the other. Both the exciting parts and the boring or difficult parts go together.
When you look back at what you have achieved thus far in your life, take special note of the parts that were, well, less than fun, boring, tedious, frustrating.
I love to garden…but hate the long laborious process of getting the soil ready and then, in the fall, doing the major clean-up before winter sets in.
But I can’t have one without the other. Both the exciting parts and the boring or difficult parts go together.
When you look back at what you have achieved thus far in your life, take special note of the parts that were, well, less than fun, boring, tedious, frustrating.
How did you keep yourself going forward, even when you would rather head in the opposite direction? What character traits or attitudes helped push you through to the other side?
Remember those approaches and use them the next time a goal requires slogging through the boring tedium that is part-and-parcel of a successful outcome.
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