I taught myself how to play the violin. Just up and decided one day that I wanted to, so got the instrument and got to work. A friend of mine told me that the violin was the hardest instrument to learn how to play. He being a Berklee educated musician, I assumed he knew what he was talking about. Later, after I’d been at it for a few months, I knew he knew what he was talking about.

That was about four, maybe five years ago. And I’ll be honest – when I started playing I wasn’t very good. Which is a really polite way of saying that it was literally painful to hear me play. I would say that the people I felt sorriest for that had to listen to me play, albeit through closed doors, were my family members, but that’s not totally true. The thing is, the violin is held between collarbone and chin, so there’s not a lot of space between the sound and the ear.

Yeah, the truth is that the person I felt sorriest for for having to hear me play, was me.

Seriously. It. was. painful.

But I kept on. Because sometimes you want something so much, that you simply have to keep at it. You have to keep on keeping on because you made the decision to do something and set your heart and mind on it and there’s this something inside you that won’t let you stop until you’re there.

Dreams can push us or pull us or inspire us to do more than we ever thought we could.

However…it’s also true that whatever the thing you want so much is, it’s probably not going to be easy to get. Worthwhile things rarely are. There’s work involved – hard work, and sometimes painfully slow results too, but if you want that thing – really want it – you keep on keeping on.

Even when it’s hard.

Even when it’s slow.

Even when it doesn’t look like much is happening at all.

You keep on keeping on.

And it might not look like much is happening. Progress might progress as slowly as a seed takes root, which is to say, pretty slowly. You might not even notice. But just like the tomato seed or the lettuce seed or the parsley seed – if you give it time, it will grow.

Seeds are like that. Dreams too. With enough tending and enough time, they’ll grow. Like the seed you might water for a week, or even two, before you see the first little bit of green poke its nose through the soil, dreams take time. There might be weeks or months or maybe even years when you think there’s nothing happening, that no progress is being made at all. That your work is not working.

But if you keep on keeping on…

…leaves will emerge

…flowers will blossom

…fruit will follow suit

…and progress will be made.

Yeah, you might say, it’s easy to say that when you’ve already progressed. Easy to paint word pictures of encouragement when you’re not really in need of encouragement.

It’s easy to say keep on keeping on when you’ve already kept on, but it’s small help when you’re down in the trench and the trench is deep and you don’t really know if you’ll ever succeed.

And it’s true – success is not guaranteed. At least not the specific level of success that you might want.

But progress is.

Guaranteed.

With work, with determination, with time, with the very fact that you keep on keeping on, at whatever it is that you’re trying to learn, do, improve upon – you will make progress.

No, I can’t guarantee that progress will come as quickly as you’d like, or that you’ll progress as far as you’d like. But what I can guarantee is that if you put in the work and you put in the time and you genuinely seek out the knowledge that you need – you will make progress.

If, that is, you keep on keeping on.

Me? I doubt I’ll ever be a virtuoso violinist.

I’m still working on my bowing. And my vibrato. And pretty much every position above fourth. And some days? Some days are still a bit painful to listen to.

But I am progressing. Slowly, but surely. And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll progress far enough to allow myself to play on one of my CD’s. It could happen.

If, of course, I keep on keeping on.

Which just might be the hardest thing in the world to do when progress sprouts as slow as a seed.

How in the world do you keep yourself motivated when you don’t see results?

How in the world do you keep on keeping on when you can’t see that you’re getting anywhere?

It’s totally true that some days you’ll be completely “in the zone”. Time will fly and you’ll work with joy and it’ll hardly seem like work at all. The promised land seems just over the horizon.

Those are the best days, right?

But they’re not all of the days.

Because some days time won’t fly. Some days you will most decidedly not be “in the zone”. Some days will just, frankly, stink. You’ll think your efforts are futile and your dream is crazy – or worse, stupid. You’ll think that there’s no way you’re ever going to see the promised land and you might just tell yourself that you don’t even care if you do.

On those days?

On those days that we ALL have – you absolutely must give yourself a break, give yourself some space, and above all, give yourself some grace.

Take a walk. Take ten minutes to meditate or pray or listen to music or dance like you mean it and like nobody’s watching. Take twenty minutes, or take an hour if that’s what it takes. Bake something delicious and then eat it. Ride a bike or go for a run or go to the mall or call a friend or call your mother.

Space.

Grace.

And know that we all have those days. We all have those times. No matter where we are on our journey.

Fear and failure and frustration, doubt and days that don’t work are just a part of life – especially for someone daring to dream.

But this day that doesn’t work?

This too will pass, and progress will be made – progress is actually being made even during the worst of days – when you keep at it. When you don’t let the mood or the failure or the fear or the frustration or the doubt stop you permanently.

Space. Grace. Deep breath and then back to work.

Progress will be made.

If you keep on keeping on.

~xo,
LuAnne




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