The Most Important Steps Are The Least Fun

Bella knows the important steps.

    It occurred to me while driving this week that the most important parts of almost every pursuit are also the least fun parts of that pursuit. I was frustrated at the time about not being able to redo our deck at this time. The deck is old and rickety, and has been re-screwed more times than I can count, and is still falling apart. I would love to just rip it out and start anew. The only problem with that is that it would throw a major wrench into the plans to pay off the house. The deck is not the sole thought like this. It occurs almost monthly that I come across a project that falls firmly in the want category rather than the need. You see, the deck has not yet reached the point of being a safety hazard. It is an eye sore perhaps, and a practice in futility while trying to extend its life, but for now it remains functional enough. For these reasons, replacing the deck is a want. If it were a safety concern I would just remove it and do without a deck for a while. A deck is a want. No one ever perished for their need of a deck.
     Back to the bigger point. I realized that continuously spying projects, dreaming up solutions, and then placing them on the back burner just plain sucks. To keep saying no to what are perfectly reasonable ambitions really drags on you over time. It isn't without its positives though. One certainly learns contentment and ingenuity. It is difficult however because if we were to step out of our bubble and act like the majority of people in the world, we could and would have completed many of these projects by now. Most of them are within the window of affordability that we could have completed them and met our other financial obligations. Most of them are projects that I could do, which would even save a substantial amount of money. So telling ourselves no to so many of these projects over the last 3 years has been hard. It is one of the hardest parts of sticking to such an aggressive goal.
    That was when it hit me, that the most important steps are always the least fun. The most important part of learning a new subject is the continuous struggle of practice. Problem set after problem set, chapter after chapter. It is the unseen day to day grind that is the most important part. The midterm is not really the most important part, it is just the proxy that we use to show whether or not the important work was done. When preparing for a race, it is not the race that is the important part, rather it is the silent and unseen mileage put in day in and day out leading up to that race. It's not even the good days where the miles fly by and speed comes in abundance that is the most important. It's the days where your legs are heavy and your breath is fleeting. The days where minutes feel like hours and miles drag on for days. Those. Those are the important days. Those are the days when the casual runner will hang up their shoes and wait for the next day. They are the days that even the committed find themselves skipping from time to time. It is in the moments that we have the most abundant and reasonable excuses to quit that the most important work is done. These times are always the least fun.
    Life is not about punishing yourself, but it should be about pushing yourself. Setting goals and going after them. If you ever find yourself in a situation where most people are telling you that your goals are unreasonable stop and remember: most people quit before they make it to the important steps. Know, if your goal is ambitious your path will be punishing. This may sound grim, I know. Ask yourself though, "Do you remember your studying for the test that you aced? or do you remember the awful days of training for your best race?" I suspect maybe, if you really try very hard, but if you are like me, those difficult but important times on your way to your goal are just vagaries and pale in comparison the feeling and memory of the goal achieved.
     Go forth and achieve. Know, if you find yourself in a moment that is decidedly not fun, just smile and know that the important steps are upon you. Why would you quit now?