It’s easy to get down on yourself when you’ve spent years chasing a dream, only to look up and feel like you’re still miles from the finish line. You start comparing your timeline to someone else’s, wondering if you took a wrong turn or if you’re just too far behind.
But I like to say, “forward is forward.” Every inch gained matters. Just because you’re not there yet doesn’t mean you’re not going somewhere extraordinary. Just staying in the game – when giving up would be easier – is a kind of quiet brilliance.
As Confucius said, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Maybe you started out with a bang – momentum, vision, even a team behind you. Things moved fast. It felt like your dream had a rocket strapped to it. But then life showed up. People dropped out. Plans hit delays. That sprint turned into a crawl, and some days it felt like you were standing still. But the dream only stopped if you did. Slow progress is still progress.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “If you can’t fly, then run; if you can’t run, then walk; if you can’t walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward.”
You look around and wonder why it seems easier for everyone else. Why does their path look smoother? Why does their progress feel faster? But what you can’t see from the outside is the doubt they wrestled with, the nights they wanted to quit, the battles they never posted about.
Everyone’s journey carries an invisible struggle. Comparison turns their highlight reel into your measuring stick – and that’s not just unfair, it’s paralyzing. The truth is, your pace is fine. Your dream is unfolding at the pace it needs to. And it was never meant to look exactly like theirs.
As Theodore Roosevelt said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.”
You might not feel like you’re crushing it. Maybe the wins aren’t flashy, the milestones aren’t Instagrammable, and your inner critic keeps whispering that it’s not enough.
But here’s something we forget: Showing up – especially when no one’s watching – is one of the rarest forms of discipline. And consistency, practiced quietly and relentlessly, is its own kind of genius. You’re not waiting to feel inspired. You’re moving anyway. That’s a rhythm most people never find.
As Jim Rohn said, “Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines practiced every day.”
You’ve made sacrifices. Skipped shortcuts. Held the line when it would’ve been easier to quit. You kept going even when the applause stopped – or never came. And that doesn’t make you slow or weak. It makes you powerful.
Anyone can run when they’re cheered on – but it takes something deeper to keep walking when it’s quiet. That is strength in its truest form. That is the character being forged in the fire.
As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.”
And when the results take longer than expected, when you’re tempted to give up just shy of the finish line, remember this: Consistency beats intensity. Showing up again, and again and again, even on the days that feel flat or fruitless, is the hallmark of every real achievement. You don’t need a perfect day. You just need another try.
As Thomas Edison put it, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
So take heart. Even if you’re crawling, you’re still moving. Even if it’s slow, it’s still forward. And in the end, the people who reach their dreams aren’t always the fastest – they’re the ones who didn’t quit.
As Tony Robbins reminds us, “No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.”
Keep going – not because it’s easy, but because it matters.
Because every quiet step is proof that you haven’t given up on yourself.
And in the end, that’s what separates dreamers from doers – and wanderers from warriors.
You don’t need to be the fastest.
You just need to be the one who doesn’t stop.
• Toby Moore is a Shaw Local News Network columnist, star of the Emmy-nominated film “A Separate Peace,” and CEO of CubeStream Inc. He can be reached at feedback@shawmedia.com.