July is almost over and I just cannot believe how fast it went by. I still feel like I have so much that I want to do before I go back to school, so its crunch time baby!!! Okay so hear me out… I got this blog post idea while I was in the bathroom at work…Literally there was a cute quote on the inside of the bathroom stall that took me by surprise. It read, “If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan but never the goal”. I stopped and stared at it for a few seconds, but then I reminded myself that I had to rush back and go help my coworkers with the crazy preschoolers we have. After work I went back to the stall to take a picture of the quote, but they changed it!! Seriously it had already been replaced with another one, “sprinkles are meant for cupcakes not toilet seats” (hilarious but not as inspiring). I was super bummed to say the least. However, when I searched the quote when I got home, I found out that there is an entire book based around this saying and I just couldn’t get it out of my head, I kept repeating it to myself all day.

Most people quit when things get hard, sometimes I do too. But why make a goal if you’re just going to quit on it when something gets in your way? You would think that you’d do anything possible to achieve your dreams, but its more likely than not that people would just give up entirely rather than finding another way to reach their goals. Goals are hard to achieve, nothing worth having in life comes easy. In the words on Brittany Spears, “You gotta work b**ch”.

One way that makes working towards your goals easier is having a strong “why”. You need a strong foundation of why you want to achieve your goal in order to prevent giving up half-way. You can’t just decide that you want to start a Fortune 500 company to piss off your ex-best-friend, or that you want to work out every day because you want to fit in with everyone else. These “whys” are not strong enough and will not keep you going when the going gets tough. I know a girl who decided one day that she was going to work her butt off in the gym, eat healthier, and lose a ton of weight because her aunt just passed away and she wanted to make her proud. NOW THAT’S AN AMAZING “WHY”! Guess what… she is now kicking butt and completely inspiring me in so many ways (hey girl so proud of you!!). Her “why” for working towards her dreams actually means something to her, it had a strong purpose to drive her to go to the gym every day and eat healthy, she wanted to make her aunt proud. I guarantee you that she has hit roadblocks in her journey, but the fact that her “why” is so meaningful to her, forces her to work around the hard times and keep pushing towards her goal of loosing weight.

Planning is also very important in your journey towards your dreams. I cannot think of one majorly successful person who just “winged” their way to success. NO! They plan a starting point, ways to make it towards their goal, and thought about each of those ways and decided on the best routes to take. If one route did not work, then they would try another, or even a combination of a few. Some people even think about possible roadblocks and ways to get around them. Never underestimate the power of planning the steps you need to take, because it can help you so much later on when you’re lost and confused on where to go next in your journey.

Two years ago, I was working on a research project and we needed an IRB approved to continue with our project. The IRB approval process can take forever, but we needed it to be done quicker than usual. I submitted our paperwork into the website and waited a few days and got no response, so then I emailed the company a few times and still got no response. Finally, I decided to walk into the office myself and hand them a hard copy of the papers, I got our project approved the next day. Its hard! You need to be patient yet persistent with achieving your goals. I did not give up on my project entirely, I found new ways to get the paperwork approved so that I can keep working on the project.

For many of you, you don’t even notice that most of the time you just give up when the task gets hard. It might be something that is so natural to many of us, and its about time that you recognize that you do this and that it’s hindering you from success. The main roadblock that gets in the way of us achieving our goals is ourselves. Our own self-doubts and inability to tough it out through the hard times. There is never just one single path towards reaching your dreams. There are many twists and turns and many times that you must look for another route. So long story sort, I would love to thank the lovely janitorial staff at work for putting up these surprisingly life changing quotes in the bathroom. It may not have been inspiring to others, but it has allowed me to self-reflect on myself and the steps I am taking to achieving everything I’ve ever wanted.