It felt like a punch to my gut.
Being told you haven’t put in enough work to be successful is a heart-breaker. Especially when it’s true …
As a Forging Leaders coach I have a commitment to write articles for the website. I’ve had some challenges and up till now, none of my work has made the cut.
Each week I meet with Jeremiah (Forging Leaders founder, and my mentor), to review what I’ve written and to get feedback.
At our last meeting Jeremiah gave me critical feedback on a couple articles. He said I explained too much of the story and left nothing for the reader to figure out. In his own way, he told me my articles are long and boring and that I needed to start from scratch.
Ouch!
I was stunned by his feedback, and pissed off that my writing wasn’t good enough.
I exclaimed, “My writing may very well create more hits for site than yours and how would you know unless you publish it.”
He could tell I was discouraged. He asked, “How many hours have you spent writing for our site?”
I replied, “Give or take, ten hours.”
He chuckled, “And you think you should be a pro by now?”
The truth is, yes I did.
Business has always come easy to me. I’ve never had to put in a ton of effort to be successful at work. I told this to Jeremiah. Then he asked me “Where have you had to work your ass off?”
“With my weight”, I said.
He asked, “How have you managed to lose over 70 pounds in the last year?”
Finally the light bulb turned on. If I want to become a great writer, It’s going to take the same commitment that I’ve given to my fitness.
I’ve got to write on a consistent basis. I’ve got to seek out feedback. I’ve got to educate myself by reading articles that have made the cut so I can understand why they work.. And most importantly, I’ve got to keep going when it gets tough.
Nothing really important comes easy. The important things take work. When I have found easy success, it’s likely that I set the bar too low.
Have you ever come up short on a goal and been pissed off at your results? What did you do about it?