Big goals can be intoxicating. They light us up, fire the imagination, and pull us toward something greater than ourselves. But they can also terrify us.

A dream business. A book. A keynote. A new career. From where you stand right now, it can feel impossible. You can’t see the way. You don’t know how it will unfold. And when it gets hard , because it always does, it’s easy to want to give up.

Don’t.

When I ran the Vermont 50 miler, I learned a really important lesson: Fifty miles is a long, long way to run.

You start in the dark before dawn, headlamps bobbing, cold air biting, the trail stretching out ahead into the unknown. In the beginning, you feel strong and excited. But hours later, the euphoria fades. Your legs ache. Your mind rebels. You question everything.

That’s when you learn the truth. You can’t run fifty miles all at once. You can only take one step, then the next. You focus on what’s right in front of you. You climb one hill, cross one stream, reach one aid station. You keep moving forward. And if you do that long enough, step by step, mile by mile, you find yourself at the finish line.

It’s the same in business. The same in life. We want the whole plan. The roadmap. The certainty. We want to know it will all work out before we begin. But that’s not how growth happens. Every great goal, every extraordinary life, begins in uncertainty. And the only way through it is persistence.

You don’t need to know every move. You don’t need to have all the answers. You just need to take the next step. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

That’s how books get written: one page at a time. That’s how businesses grow: one client at a time. That’s how new careers are built: one conversation, one connection, one brave action at a time.

When you hit the wall, and you will, remember this: you’re not failing. You’re learning. You’re stretching. You’re becoming the person capable of achieving what you set out to do. Persistence isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about showing up again and again, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s about keeping faith when the outcome isn’t yet visible.

You take one step, then the next. You trust that the path will rise to meet you. There’s power in simplicity. Focus on today’s action. Write the page. Make the call. Send the proposal. Have the conversation. You don’t have to see the finish line to move toward it. You just need to keep moving.

Because momentum builds. Clarity comes through action. And somewhere along the way, what once felt impossible starts to take shape. Step by step, the dream becomes real.

That’s the secret. Not talent. Not luck. Persistence. Keep going. You’ve got this. Take one step. And then the next.