It felt like a punch to my gut.

Being told you haven’t put in enough work to be successful is a heart-breaker.  Especially when it’s true …

As a Forging Leaders coach I have a commitment to write articles for the website.  I’ve had some challenges and up till now, none of my work has made the cut.

Each week I meet with Jeremiah (Forging Leaders founder, and my mentor), to review what I’ve written and to get feedback.

At our last meeting Jeremiah gave me critical feedback on a couple articles.  He said I explained too much of the story and left nothing for the reader to figure out.  In his own way, he told me my articles are long and boring and that I needed to start from scratch.

Ouch!

I was stunned by his feedback, and pissed off that my writing wasn’t good enough.

I exclaimed, “My writing may very well create more hits for site than yours and how would you know unless you publish it.”

He could tell I was discouraged. He asked, “How many hours have you spent writing for our site?”

I replied, “Give or take, ten hours.”

He chuckled, “And you think you should be a pro by now?”

The truth is, yes I did.

Business has always come easy to me. I’ve never had to put in a ton of effort to be successful at work.  I told this to Jeremiah. Then he asked me “Where have you had to work your ass off?”

“With my weight”, I said.

He asked, “How have you managed to lose over 70 pounds in the last year?”

I replied, “I created a schedule for workouts, a meal plan to follow, sought out a trainer and most importantly didn’t quit when it got tough.”

Finally the light bulb turned on.  If I want to become a great writer, It’s going to take the same commitment that I’ve given to my fitness.

I’ve got to write on a consistent basis.  I’ve got to seek out feedback.  I’ve got to  educate myself by reading articles that have made the cut so I can understand why they work..  And most importantly, I’ve got to keep going when it gets tough.

Nothing really important comes easy. The important things take work.  When I have found easy success, it’s likely that I set the bar too low.

Have you ever come up short on a goal and been pissed off at your results?  What did you do about it?