When you are going through hell keep going

I heard a construction worker make this statement and it struck me as so profound that I thought I should write a post on it. It is often said that the hardest part of any journey is taking the first step. This can be seen in almost every approach to time management.

Step 1 - break the problem into small, easily consumable chunks.
Step 2 - get started.

But into every perfect plan some problems will fall and how we react to these problems defines who we are. John F Kennedy once said "History will never accept difficulties as an excuse." So we need to make sure that we adapt, move forward and keep things going. In business and life you are not successful if you try really hard and have good excuses why you couldn't get what needed to happen to happen.

If you think about it, the people that we all like to work with the most are the people that have positive energy. They know what they want to get done and choose to make the best and most out of every day. They are grounded people who know who they are and are determined to meet their goals and they can be anywhere in an organization..

I am a big believer in the sentiment of if you never break anything you are not doing anything of value. A good chunk of the long term term success of that statement though is that you don't give up. Thus the profoundness of the statement... if you are going through hell you keep going. To me this equates to sticking to your guns and not giving up because things get hard. It doesn't mean that working 120 hours every week is ok. Sustainable pace is necessary and we need to plan the right resources, phases and release plan to make sure things go right.