All you need to read if you feel like giving up!

The days are long, sure, but the years ahead are going to be very, very short.

We've all been there. Stuck on a project that seems to drag on endlessly. The daily grind of chipping away at it can feel tedious, monotonous, and never-ending.

"This is taking forever," we think.

"Am I even making any progress?"

But then we blink, and suddenly, years have flown by. That grand ambition or epic undertaking we've poured thousands of hours into is just...done. Finito.

After trudging through what felt like an eternity of sluggish days, we arrived at our destination in what seemed like no time at all.

It's a dizzying paradox: the days are long, but the years are short. It applies to every worthwhile pursuit in life—mastering a skill, building a business, raising children, or any other goal that fundamentally changes who we are over time.

I experienced this timewarp vividly while writing my first book. On a day-to-day basis, it was gruelling.

• Staring at a blinking cursor for hours

• Tearing out my hair (not that I have much of it left anyway) over a stubborn paragraph

• Constantly revising, rewriting, and restructuring

• Agonising about whether it was even any good

Many days, it felt like I was trying to sculpt a mountain grain-by-grain with a toothpick. The long, grinding hours stretched into weeks and months of the same old struggle.

• "Writing a book shouldn't take this long!"

• "When will this thing ever be done?!"

• "I'll never be able to pull this off."

But then, over the years, something amazing happened—that bitter daily struggle transformed into a finished book! One that got published! An actual, physical object made of paper that showed up on bookshelves.

After all those years, I hunched over a keyboard, cursing myself for being such a slow writer—poof! There it was. That crazy dream I'd fantasised about for so long had become real, almost without me realising it.

Looking back, those years flew by in a blurry haze. It was bizarre to think that all of those thousands of hours of typing had actually accumulated into an end result.

So, the daily toil felt interminable while the years raced by. It was enough to scramble my brain.

The point is that most people grossly underestimate how much time and effort goes into developing a valuable skill or creating something meaningful. \

We imagine lofty outcomes but are far less romantic about the unglamorous commitment required to get there.

• The marathon sessions of drilling the same reps over and over.

• Coping with stagnation, hitting plateaus, and wanting to quit.

• Persisting through dark moments of doubt and lack of motivation.

This never-ending grind is precisely why many people abandon their highest ambitions prematurely. Pursuing a dream can feel like treading water—a whole lot of exhausting work without any apparent forward progress for years. It's too defeating, and most throw in the towel too soon.

But here's the irony: those who cultivate the resolve to keep showing up and putting in the hours will eventually create their own paradoxical experience of the days being long yet the years being short. It's inevitable for anyone who repeatedly re-engages with their pursuit and outlasts their negative impulses and detrimental habits.

Days turn into weeks, into months, into years. And that initial vision that once seemed crazy and impossible will suddenly materialise as if by pure magic, even though you know damn well just how gruelling the process of manifesting it has been.

So the next time you catch yourself lamenting, "This is taking way too long!" Remember those words: the days are long, but the years are short.

Trust that your perseverance through today's slog will pay exponential dividends.

One assiduous step after another will soon add up to outrageous growth, progress, and profound life-changing results that'll appear in the blink of an eye—even if the lived experience was one of tremendous dues-paying. The paradox is fundamental!

As the entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk puts it:

"I worked 18 hours a day for eight years straight, living out of a suitcase four days a week, and people think I'm an overnight success."

Committing to your dreams for the long haul does get more manageable when you embrace the seeming contradiction that your journey will feel like an eternal struggle filled with long, arduous days, yet the years will blow by. Your dream will suddenly become a reality.

The patience to outlast your aversion to the grind makes all the difference.

So maintain that faith, stick to the habits, and keep chipping away. The days are long, sure, but the years ahead are going to be very, very short.

---

Thanks for reading! This is a free daily article. If you enjoyed it, please share it online, invite your friends, or, even better, buy me a cup of coffee!