When You Have To Do It Alone

A good deal of the time, there is someone or something you can do all this for. Someone or something that is supporting you. A cause, a goal, a person, something. But sometimes you reach dark lengths of your path, and there is nothing and no one to do it for. Nothing and no one to support you. You are alone. There is nothing except you.

Do It For You

Having support and inspiration is wonderful. Having a person, group, and/or goal that you are pushing yourself for the sake of can be a powerful motivator. This is doubly true when anyone or anything is depending on you. Because then you CAN'T fail, or you let them down as well as yourself.

But on dark, lonely areas of your path, you don't have any of that. No one is around to push you, remind you, or expect anything of you. It's just you and the pre-dawn when your alarm goes off. It's you vs. exhaustion when you don't want to, or don't feel like you can.

At these times, you have to do it purely for yourself. You have to get up and get under the bar. You have to push back the tired, the don't want to, the can't. You have to get out of bed. You have to finish the project. You have to decide that you and you alone are worth it. That you getting better, stronger, smarter, faster purely for your own growth is enough.

Coming Out The Other Side

These dark places are some of the most challenging times. It's hard to go forward or even maintain where you are with no like-minded people around you, no support, and nothing to work towards but your own betterment.

But if you strive, if you push, if you keep at it, I promise you that it will be worth it. You never know who is watching you, who is inspired by you. Even if you do spend a period of time where there actually is nothing and no one, do it for yourself anyway. Reach the point where it doesn't matter who else is looking, who else even notices.

Once you are able to do this, chances are that the recognition, the comradery, and the support will come by means of who begin to associate with or be noticed by. Even if they don't, you'll have learned that going it alone is no obstacle to pushing yourself through that hardship and loneliness to reach the next level entirely on your own.

What Were Your Darkest Times?

As always, I want to hear from all of you. Tell us about your darkest times, your loneliest times, the times that you pushed through anyway and kept at it.