Achieve to the End: What it Takes to Reach a Goal.
One of the shortfalls for making changes in our life is that they often don’t seem to last. Diets almost always fail; our efforts towards being more active falls by the wayside; and the goals we were once excited to make are forgotten or ignored. Life seems to get in the way, and old patterns die hard. We feel frustrated and sometimes give up, telling ourselves, “It’s too hard,” or “I can’t do it.”
What it boils down to is consistency. Either we stay the course, or we don’t. Sure, we may weaken along the way, but we don’t have to let that be the end of our journey. The Bible speaks to this in Proverbs 24:16 (NLT): “The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.” The effort becomes not in our doing, but in our staying. It calls for perseverance.
This is a word that a women’s running team has embraced as they entered the third phase of a half-marathon training program. Having completed ten weeks of training, the excitement of the honeymoon period was long over. To stay the course, these women needed to draw on the non-running elements of their training. They had to draw on their previous commitment to train, and they had to persevere to complete their goals.
Likewise, they had to draw on their “whys” – the reasons they chose to push their bodies through sweltering heat, physical pain, and early morning long runs on weekends. Some have said they wanted to finish what they started. Others shared they wanted to set an example for their children. Several others reported their desire was to improve their health with weight loss and cardiovascular conditioning.
Fortunately for these women, their “whys” were established at the start of the training. Quitting midstream would mean changing the very truth about themselves.
Whatever the reasons behind the goals that we set, to achieve these goals, we must remain steadfast and consistent, firm in our resolve and commitment to persevere, despite the difficulty.