Well, I don’t know about you but I have been feeling a bit stuck lately.
Anyone else? Caught in the pandemic slump with the hope of vaccines on the horizon yet still out of reach because everything is closed again?
If so, you’re not alone.
I happened to open Instagram and see that Tahereh Mafi was doing a live video chat for 1-hour to answer questions submitted by her fans. Quick summary if you don’t know who she is:
- Author of the “Shatter Me” series (Young Adult sci-fi romance)
- Married to Ransom Riggs, author of “Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children” series
- I went to a Q&A session in Calgary to see her in 2015 and she signed my books
I happened to click on this live session for the last 10 minutes and within that short time frame she shared a quote with us 500 watchers that resonated with me:
“Successful people and unsuccessful people dislike doing the same things. The difference is, successful people do those unpleasant things over and over.”
To be brutally honest, I am not the type of person who seeks out inspirational quotes and very few things actually inspire me. But this quote… it works on so many levels!
On the surface a person can think of it simply. For example, doing chores is something people generally dislike. Doing laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming… and yet everybody has to do them, but successful people will do them regularly with little complaint.
We can interpret it deeper, for example going to school. There are many tasks in high school, college, and university that people don’t like to do. Classes that we don’t want to take, assignments we don’t want to complete. But we do those unpleasant things anyways because we want to graduate with a diploma or degree. Or even at work, I know I've done lots of unpleasant work tasks because I wanted my paycheck!
In Tahereh’s context, she was referring to the unpleasant parts about writing a novel because writing a book is hard. It’s hard work that comes from pure self-motivation.
“Just because you appear to be successful doesn’t mean you enjoy doing those things, you just do them.”
This is very accurate. In our daily lives we have to push through those unpleasant moments, follow the daily-grind in order to reach the fun parts. The happy moments wouldn’t feel so sweet without the unpleasant parts.
I hope these words resonated with you as much as they did for me and I’m sure you have your own interpretation of them! That’s my mid-day Wednesday hump-day motivation to finish off the week!
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