you must keep moving forward

“Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”

― Winston Churchill

The whirlwinds are blowing against you. The odds are not in your favor. Your back is against the wall. Life is bringing you down on your knees. It’s coaxing you to wave the white flag of surrender. It’s dark, it’s uncertain. Your misfortune is bleeding you dry. What are you going to do? Would you give up? Would you betray your mission? Would you compromise? Would you roll over? Would you kneel and call it quits?

Nah, if you value courage, bravery, righteousness, discipline, if you’re inclined to take the road less traveled and design an extraordinary life for yourself, if you’re a high-achiever in your bones and believe in yourself and your vision, then you know what you must do — scream NO, pull yourself together, gather every ounce of power and strength within you, and keep marching forward.

This is what all the warriors, the game-changers, the exceptionalists, the pioneers, the philosophers and the superachievers have done throughout the history of humanity. They stood their ground. They tightened their shields. They fixed their armors. They adjusted their helmets. They raised their swords. And they kept going, doing the one thing that they committed and dedicated their life to. 

A superior human never quits. For them, their purpose, their mission, their duty and their honor always come first. Persistence is in their DNA. And no matter what or who they encounter, no matter how much pain or torture they need to go through, they always act with insane courage and steadfast determination.

You must overcome setbacks and obstacles if you want to achieve long-lasting success. “One of the most common causes of failure,” Napoleon Hill wrote in Think and Grow Rich, “is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.” Your greatest success is always one step beyond the point at which you encountered defeat. And that’s why the only question that matters is: Will you keep moving forward?

In the movie Rocky Balboa, Rocky tells his misguided son, “The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”

Persistence is the only thing that separates success and failure. Napoleon Hill pointed out, “Failure is a trickster with a keen sense of irony and cunning. It takes great delight in tripping one when success is almost within reach.” So, no matter what happens, don’t surrender, don’t quit, don’t compromise, you have it in you to win. You can reach your desired destination, you can achieve that mighty accomplishment, the only thing that you must do is keep moving forward.