When you feel like giving up, picture an iceberg

Concept introduced by Jordan Belfort.

Do you ever feel that no matter how hard you work, you just never seem to break through? You seem to be stuck in whatever you do without making a big leap toward your big goal. Maybe you have tried every exercise regime but never get your desired body, burnt the midnight oil for your venture but never get the traction you want, tried investing but never fail to burn your asset. When the world seems to be conspiring against you, it’s hard to find a reason to go on.

When you’ve lost all the drive to continue, picture an iceberg.

If you’ve seen one, most likely it’s just the tip. Only 1/9 of the massive chunk of ice is visible to our eyes while 8/9 of it hides under water. Our journey towards success is just like climbing the iceberg from the bottom. For each day that we work towards our goal, we move one step closer to the tip. We are progressing. That is just the fact. Every time we put a concerted effort into something, we make progress. Even when we failed, we progress by learning from our mistake and increasing our chance to succeed the next time. But since we are underwater, our progress is close to unnoticeable.

And that’s why most people give up. They think they are not advancing. If we can last long enough until we pass 8/9 of the gruesome part, however, we will start seeing results, our progress becomes visible, things start to fall into places and before knowing it, we might find ourselves at the top. It’s hard to see that right now, but we need to have the stoical faith that we are moving towards our goal. Think about it, if we fall, pick ourselves up, fall and pick ourselves up again and again, won’t we eventually find success? We get better at what we do; Our network gets larger; Inevitably, the odds swing closer to our favor.

The secret to success then, is not that complicated; show up and do the job. Every. Single. Day. Grind and repeat. No matter what we think the result is. Do it smartly, do with discipline, and we will get to the top of the iceberg.

So the next time you feel like giving in, remember, you might be halfway out of the water already!