Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering

by Cameron R. Hanes

The times we could have done more eat at your self-esteem. They rob you of your self-respect and diminish your belief in your potential.

Don’t ever prejudge who can and cannot make an impact in your life. Even the most unlikely of people can turn out to be instrumental in your journey. Maybe the villain in your story is actually just an antihero in disguise.

We all grow up having to rely on people. Our parents, family, friends, neighbors, teachers. I didn’t have anybody to rely on, so that meant I had to do things for myself. If I didn’t push myself—and there was a time I was quite happy not pushing myself—there was nobody else there to push me.

Don’t make excuses. Give it your all. Show up when you’re supposed to show up. Speak your mind. Own up to your mistakes. Think with perspective. This is how you live a life worth remembering. That’s what I was starting to do.

Training hard is not easy. It’d be really easy not to run every day. It’d be really easy not to lift every day. It’d be really easy not to shoot my bow every day. Only problem: Easy sucks! You don’t wake up and see a new person in the mirror. There are no overnight transformations or dramatic improvements. Just little tweaks along the way.

Do whatever you want to do. Whatever gives you confidence, whatever makes you feel good, whatever makes you feel empowered—do that. If that’s shooting your bow, do that. If that’s playing chess, go for it. Do something that inspires you and makes you work hard. I’m inspired by people who give their best every day.

This is for one day. Just one day of my life. I can get through anything for a day.

The lesson I learned was even when you feel like you’re done, you’re not done. Endurance means you’re never done. The passion you hold inside will always be there, whether it’s boiling through your veins or buried deep in your heart. To endure means to never end, to know the journey is long, to bear with the long days and weeks and sometimes even years.