Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "It's not the destination, it’s the journey” that counts. Now, I’m sure we’ve all heard these wise words before, but how many of us really and truly apply them to our lives and businesses?
Often, we get caught up in wanting to see the results of our efforts without taking time to enjoy the journey and the getting there. I was reminded of the danger of this way of thinking when I listened to one of my favourite podcasts, The R&B Money Podcast, with Tank and J. Valentine, recently. In the episode I tuned into, they were interviewing someone by the name of Adrian Marcel, and he said something quite powerful and similar to Emerson's quote which was, “A lot of people get frustrated and they quit on their dreams [in this case becoming R&B artists] because they make the date the destination”. I.e., they start saying stuff like, “Man, I’ve been doing this for [years] and I’m not making the kind of headway that I would want to; so I give up.”
Even though we’re not all trying to be R&B stars, we can all relate to having a plan for our careers and lives that hasn't panned out by the time that we thought it would. This expectation of success and the frustration of failure is something I see a lot in PR especially when people end up hearing nothing back or they get a “no” after sending a few pitches. This makes them quit on themselves because when they’ve put in the time and effort with no result, they start thinking that no one wants to hear their story.
If this has been your experience; if this has been your frustration, I want to encourage you to not make the date the destination. Keep going, trust the process because you are doing this for a purpose. Eventually, your voice will be heard, and you will get your stuff out there. The law of averages dictates so.