At One Point, Your Favorite Book Did Not Exist.

Having dreams is hard work. Really, no matter what stage you're at. Whether you're failing or succeeding or chasing them, dreams and goals and hopes are hard work. And when they make things difficult, it can be easy to look around at others who seem to be successful and just decide you're not cut out for this.

But here's the thing.

At one point, things that you use now on a daily basis--iPhones and instagram and those sorts of things--were nothing more than ideas, if that.

There was a time when that life-changing idea that helped so many people across the world only existed in one person's mind.

At one point, your favorite book did not exist. There were no ideas, chapters, publishing contracts. It simply did not exist.

One thing that everyone who has ever succeeded has in common is that at one point, they had not succeeded yet. And then, they did. 

An idea and hard work and perseverance and a connection or two and some time and a little bit of magic later, their dream was a reality.

So maybe right now, your book doesn't exist yet. Your great idea still only lives in your head. Your big dream is too unrealistic, too expensive, too foolish.

If that's the case, you're on the right track. And you're in good company.

You don't know when it's going to be your turn. 

You never know when things are going to turn around.

Don't quit before you get there.

If there's a beautiful story living inside your head, what a shame it would be to quit before the world got a chance to read it.

What a pity it would be to give up before your big ideas have a chance to change the world.

So yes, dreams are hard, no matter how you look at it. And when they get to be too hard--when you're too tired or too broke or too overwhelmed or feel too small, you have to remember this.

These are words I grew up hearing my dad say over and over, words that reverberate in my brain when I'm tired and want to stop waking up early to write. Words that shoot (sometimes painfully) through my heart when I want to stop blogging and stop writing and find something else I like almost as much and just settle with being almost as happy.

If you don't quit, you can't lose. 

If you keep going, eventually you're going to make it. A week from now or twenty years from now or next month...if you keep going, you will win this.