Keep your flame alive

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

– Winston Churchill

You love your project otherwise you won’t take all the pain and suffering to embrace that opportunity.

How do you ensure that your romantic relationship with your idea survives?

How do you keep that flame alive?

Short answer: By being honest with yourself.

Long answer: Being aware of what it really takes to pursue an opportunity is a good start. Pursuing any significant opportunity in your life will require serious investment of your resources – time, energy, money etc. for a long period of time. This may involve sacrificing other opportunities along the way, losing some sleep, facing some heartburns, trials and tribulations, disappointments, betrayals, new friendships, loss of friendships and more.

It takes courage and commitment to keep going in the face of all the roadblocks along the way.

Adding to this, your pursuit and idea will evolve and you will change course.

If that is not enough, there will be people around you who will say that you are crazy to pursue these dreams and you should simply give up.

Your close friends and family members may see you burning the midnight oil and may ask you to settle down for something “reasonable” rather than breaking your back.

Just like when you are climbing the hill, it gets harder as you start reaching the top.

The last mile is probably the hardest and that’s where a lot of people throw their towels and head back to where they think they belong.

When you are pursuing something significant, you will enter unfamiliar and unknown territories.

If all these look easy, just realize that it is meant to be that way. Greater the challenge, sweeter will be the victory. The joy of surmounting all the challenges along the way is what will make the destination special.

You can rarely expect accolades for taking a walk in the park.

You want the glory, but you also want to “deserve” it. The “deserve” part is what will keep the flame burning.

We are now at a stage where we need to revisit the million dollar question – “Why?”