Most people quit right before they’re about to break through, but the truth is those who overcome obstacles and keep going are the ones who experience the actual breakthroughs. In Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich, the story “Three Feet From Gold” recounts R.U. Darby’s gold mining venture and how he quit 3 feet from striking an exceedingly rich gold mind, and it’s an example of how many of us live our lives. In the book, the “junk” man who bought Darby’s machinery hired an engineer to look at the mine, who then advised the gold would be found just three feet from where Darby stopped drilling. The “junk” man took millions from the mine.
In our lives, we often play the role of Darby in the story when we should be playing the role of the “junk” man.
When you realize that the issue isn’t that you lack ability and potential, or don’t have what it takes, that’s when you see growth. The problem is you don’t push yourself beyond your perceived limits because it’s uncomfortable.
It’s when you begin to reframe your thoughts about challenges—they’re not destined to stop you but can be used to mold and shape you into a better version of yourself.
If you stop now, you will never know how close you are to achieving your goals.
Persistence is key if you want to change your life, regardless of what area you’re trying to change.
This quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson is really what got me thinking about today’s discussion:
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why Most People Struggle to Overcome Obstacles
The Mind’s Resistance to Difficulty
You might struggle to overcome obstacles in your life for multiple reasons, and no one is immune. Everyone struggles with something. Oftentimes, however, you can get into a mindset where you feel as if you are the only one dealing with something difficult, leaving you with the feeling that you’re alone.
The truth is, you’re not alone.
Each person deals with their own internal battles as they attempt to overcome negative mindsets, limiting beliefs, subconscious programming, challenging environments, etc., as they work to break free from whatever seems to be holding them back in life.
When you examine it more closely, you will find that many of your challenges are the result of your mind’s resistance to difficulty, its resistance to change.
You become comfortable with your status quo, and since it feels normal, you struggle to change because that change means you’re headed for uncharted waters.
Making that change also requires a greater energy expenditure because you must exert more focus on creating the change, as opposed to coasting through life with your usual mental attitude and mindset.
There’s also resistance because of the fear of failure.
Failure that you can’t do what you set out to do, so why even bother?
It’s fearing failure because of what others might think if you don’t succeed.
Sometimes, it feels like failure because what you had hoped would happen didn’t happen in the timeframe you expected. Disappointment sets in, and your comparison of how well someone else did drags you down.
Societal pressures for instantaneous results or comparison can often derail you because if you can’t overcome, change, or achieve in a specified time period, you must be a failure.
However, actual change requires you to embrace every challenge.
The Hidden Growth in Every Challenge
The struggle you encounter isn’t a sign to quit; it’s merely an opportunity for growth. You can either continue living the life you’re currently living or go through the struggle and effect change.
This brings us back to Emerson’s quote, “That which we persist in doing becomes easier – not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”
If you give up early, you won’t build the resilience necessary to elicit the change you’re hoping for. The more you work through the struggle, the easier it becomes because you develop and adapt based on the requirements of the challenge.
If you’re learning to read, the struggle is understanding each letter’s sound individually while simultaneously grouping all the letters to create the word.
Initially, this is difficult because you have to remember what sound correlates to each shape. Then, you have multiple shapes requiring multiple sounds to be bunched together, and you have to formulate how to connect the sounds as a whole.
Over time, the brain creates neural pathways that remember the shape and sound of letters and the overall associations that those mixtures of sounds and letters create.
Now, and this is just me going out on a limb here, I’m confident that most of the words you’ve read thus far haven’t caused specific consternation as to the etymological provenance of their orthographic manifestation or the phonemic idiosyncrasies underpinning their enunciation.
In short, when you initially face something challenging, it’s usually because you haven’t developed the necessary resilience, mental or physical, to overcome it.
However, the more persistent you are in your endeavor to overcome obstacles, the sooner you will succeed. The breakthrough often comes after the most challenging part, so keep moving forward!
The Fire That Makes You Stronger: Why You Must Overcome Obstacles
Pressure Creates Strength
It’s said that diamonds are formed under extreme pressure. Likewise, when a blacksmith creates a tool, extreme heat and pressure are applied to the metal being used so it can be formed appropriately to fashion the tool.
Without the pressure and fire, the diamond and tools cannot be made.
The same goes for strong people.
It can be challenging to understand the true tenacity it took for people to survive in this world even a hundred years ago, let alone hundreds or thousands of years ago. It can also be hard to comprehend the challenges many face today in our age as their countries are torn apart by war, famine, or disease.
Strength Isn’t Built in Comfort
Our Western society is so comfortable and coddled that lacking internet causes complete consternation and frustration.
When you lose electricity for a few hours, especially when your favorite show or game is on, there’s a chance you might lose your mind!
If your car doesn’t start in the morning, it can be very frustrating, especially when you have places to go.
However, the frustration pales in comparison to your horse being sick or dying when you need it to pull your plow through the field so you can plant crops to feed your family.
Or when it snows so heavy, you wonder how you will gather firewood for the single-room house you share with five other family members out on the prairie.
The anger, grief, and frustration can’t compare to having your village raided, friends and family killed or dragged off as slaves for neighboring tribes, or watching it being wiped out by a wasting disease, leaving a few to fight on and rebuild.
A certain level of mental toughness is required in order to survive these types of circumstances and conditions.
The issue for Western society is we don’t deal with such difficult situations, so mental toughness begins to wane, and as a result, we weaken mentally, and our difficult situation becomes one that someone who’s been to hell and back wouldn’t even bat an eye at.
Regardless of what has happened in the past and what others around the world might be facing in the present, pain is still pain. The pressure you face is still pressure that must be endured, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Even if your challenges seem small compared to others or feel overwhelmingly uncomfortable, they still shape and mold you—if you let them.
You can either be consumed by them or learn to grow from them and rise above with equanimity.
Growing Through the Pain
In modern times, the pressure you face is different but not so difficult that it creates hardened individuals who almost seem impervious to life.
This doesn’t mean people in our day and age don’t endure major trials or hardships, and some do become extremely hardened individuals. It’s just not as common or in-your-face as it once might have been.
Our struggles seem to be more about overcoming ourselves than the actual circumstances.
To be a great athlete, you must overcome your limiting beliefs and self-doubt and not listen to the naysayers who say you cannot make it and don’t have what it takes.
In business, it’s about overcoming the odds stacked against you and continuing to show up and deliver superior service even when no one knows who you are and, quite frankly, don’t even care what you have to offer.
Suppose you’re attempting to get into the entertainment industry. In that case, there are a thousand people who look just like you, and honestly, many of them look better, act or sing better, write better, and play better, but all it takes is that one moment of magic that could potentially change your life. You just don’t know when that moment is.
In all of these examples, you must be prepared, you must be ready for whatever comes, and you must stay consistent.
Every failure is another step up the rung of the ladder of growth.
But if you don’t take that next step, despite the obstacles, you’ll never reach the top.
Quitting Too Soon Has a Cost
I have quit too soon in many endeavors. I have failed to practice or try hard enough to ensure I achieve the desired end result.
I have given up time and time again because I let limiting beliefs, fear of failure or rejection, comparison, discomfort, and pain throw me off the path of success.
It’s not that I wanted this option; I didn’t know how to overcome the struggles at the time. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to see the truth, so I started sharing this information through my writing and podcasts.
Over the years, I’ve listened to and read more and more stories of others who have tried, failed, and tried again, only to fail even harder before eventually reaching success, and it’s helped inform me of my own shortcomings.
An Example of Not Quitting
Take Ed Mylett, for example. His net worth is estimated to be around $400 million. However, he was not so fortunate in his early days.
He recalls being so broke that his car was repossessed, his water and electricity were shut off, and he and his wife had to use the free showers at the public beach early in the morning before people arrived.
He would hold the towel around his wife as she showered to give her privacy because they had nowhere else to go. That sounds like a bad situation.
But guess what? He didn’t quit, and now he makes more money than most people can imagine.
If you don’t make that kind of money, that’s ok. That shouldn’t be the goal. The goal should be to create the life you want to live physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Part of the problem with quitting, though, is that it can leave you filled with regret, and regret lasts longer than discomfort.
Don’t Miss Your Breakthrough Moment
The other problem is that you often quit right before the breakthrough moment.
Think of your favorite actors. Many of them failed audition after audition because of their looks, acting ability, or lack thereof, as well as their height, weight, and skills, among many other criteria they’re constantly judged on during an audition.
There are many times an actor has a great audition. It seems like things are going well, and everyone likes you, but you don’t get the call.
After so many of those moments, people start to give up. The only problem is, just because you weren’t right for that part, it doesn’t mean you weren’t right for another one coming down the line, but when the casting director posts the audition, you can’t be found.
The actors you know and love are the ones who didn’t quit. I promise you that there are incredibly talented individuals out there who could have become household names but are not because they gave up too early.
They didn’t get the calls they hoped for, so they packed their bags and headed elsewhere.
Don’t quit too early. If you give up too early and stop now, you may never see what’s possible.
How to Overcome Obstacles and Keep Moving Forward
Step 1: Shift Your Mindset: See Struggles as a Path, Not a Roadblock
You’re thoughts shape your reality.
- Instead of saying, “I can’t do this,” ask, “How can I figure this out?”
- Don’t look at obstacles as roadblocks; look at them as problems to be solved.
- Change your perspective on failure because this determines whether you can succeed.
“Whether you think you can, or can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
Step 2: Build Mental Toughness and Grit
- Discipline over motivation—show up even when you don’t feel like it.
- You won’t always feel motivated, but sometimes, you just have to do it, whether you want to or not.
- Set micro-goals to keep momentum.
- Have the overarching goal, then create micro-goals to take you to that place.
- Make friends with discomfort—it’s temporary, but growth is permanent.
- Cold showers, working out (running, lifting, or swimming), meditation, no screens, etc.
Step 3: Use Practical Strategies to Keep Going
- Surround yourself with people who push you forward.
- Track progress and celebrate small wins along the way.
- Develop a toolbox:
- Breathing techniques
- Visualization
- Positive self-talk.
What Awaits You on the Other Side of Persistence?
The Power of Pushing Through
Every major success story was and is built on overcoming obstacles within the life of that individual. I challenge you to find someone you’re interested in who is successful in some area of their life. Someone who is at the top of their game. They could be in business, entertainment, athletics, or political endeavors or overcame mental, physical, or emotional challenges.
Find someone and learn about their life, where they came from, and how they got to where they are today. You’ll find that most people haven’t had life handed to them, but they had to develop and grow into the person you admire.
As you begin to realize the struggles many of these individuals went through, you’ll start to see that you really aren’t that different. The only difference is the effort you put into becoming who you want to be.
The effort you put in now will compound over time. The question is, are you willing to start putting in the effort?
If you feel like you’re in the middle of the struggle, don’t quit. Keep pushing forward. Show up every day and give it your all.
I know it can be tiring and draining. It can feel like nothing’s working, and it’s all for naught, but don’t forget that the obstacle you’re facing isn’t a wall—it’s a door to the next level. You just have to learn how to unlock it.
Once you have that breakthrough, guess what? You’ll get to face additional obstacles. The goal then is to get good at facing the obstacles and continually breaking through to the other side.
I wish you well on your journey!
If you enjoyed this article, please share it with someone who needs to read it.
Thank you for your time; I hope you have a wonderful day!
Josiah
