You are stronger than you might think.

You. Yes I’m talking to you. I’m talking to the single mother, the married couple, the fatherless, the parentless and in short, anyone who happens to read this message today. You are stronger than you might think. Whether you are soaring 30,000 feet above the ground and the world is just falling the way it should or you are buried beneath the rubble of a mountain sized load on top of you, you are stronger than you might think.

Don’t listen to the haters

Everyone has them. Everyone has that friend or family that doesn’t believe in them. Everyone has that nagging voice in the back of your mind telling you that you are just not capable of accomplishing the task in front of you. Successful individuals are not successful because they don’t have these voices. They are successful in spite of them. They are successful because even though they fail along the way, even though the voices get louder each time they fall, they still find a way to move forward. They still push their way through.

Do they catch a lucky break along the way? Often times they do but they would have never found themselves in a situation to get lucky had they quit along the way. Successful people are successful not because they are inherently smarter, more intelligent or are naturally more gifted.  They are successful because they refuse to quit.

The Massive Lie That Everyone Believes

The little things don’t matter. It’s what everyone says they know is not true but deep inside, it’s what many people believe. They really do believe that the little victories don’t matter. You don’t become a great parent by winning a one time major victory or making the correct decision in a singular instance. You become a great parent by doing the little things over and over and over again. You become a great parent by pulling up the covers and kissing your kids goodnight. Even if you don’t pull up the covers over your children, simply having the desire to do so is a start. You become a great parent when you realize you are not doing some of the things you want to do and so you start today simply with the desire to change. Then you move on to making small systematic improvements that eventually lead down the path of becoming a great parent. Anyone can be a great parent for one day. The challenge is being a great parent over a lifetime.

In short, you become a great parent or a great _________ when you finally realize the little things do matter, and thus you change your own behavior by doing them. The man who gets out of the massive debt that he has doesn’t remove it over night. The 60 year old who is extremely overweight doesn’t lose all of the excess pounds in a weekend. The 30+ year smoker doesn’t become a non-smoker in a week. The successful parent, student, boss, employee, or entrepreneur don’t become great overnight. They become great by understanding that the little things do matter and that they have the capacity to do them.

Doing the hard thing

The hard thing is getting back up the 439th time after being beaten down 438 times. But that’s precisely what makes you strong and what makes you stronger than you think. You don’t even realize how many times you’ve already gotten back up.  You don’t realize how many times you’ve already done the hard thing.  How many times you still get up, still get out of bed and face the difficult path before you. You still manage to wake up and get the kids ready even though you didn’t sleep at all the night before because of a your newborn baby. You still manage to bake your roommates some cookies even though you just found out you bombed your test that morning. You still manage to help the stranger who needed a helping hand even though your marriage if falling apart.  You are doing all of the hard things that matter but you simply don’t realize  it.

As the great A.A. Milne wrote in Winnie-the-Pooh: