It took me five years to get my driver’s license. You read that right. Five years. By the time I got it, high school freshmen were into their sophomore year of college. College freshman were into their first year of the workforce.
Why am I admitting this shameful detail about myself? Because it’s a good reminder that sometimes the path to where you want to go is full of obstacles. And whether the obstacles are internal or external — or both — and whether you’ve failed more times than you can count, you owe it to yourself to keep trying.
It always seems impossible until it's done. Those wise words courtesy of Nelson Mandela say it all.
I convinced myself that I’d never get my driver’s license — in fact, I convinced myself I was not meant to get my driver’s license and that my getting it would cause some sort of butterfly effect catastrophe. (That said, I did get it in 2001 — the same year gas prices surged — so I may have been onto something.)
After over a dozen years of driving, I can’t picture my life without it, and it's hard to remember being unable to manage a clutch or being too paralyzed with fear to go beyond a parking lot.
Everyone has these things — these goals that they’ve picked up and then given up repeatedly. Maybe that S.O.B. known as parallel parking isn’t your stumbling block of achieving your unfulfilled long-term goals, but something is.
What’s holding you back? Fear? Taking the easy way out? Insecurity? Lack of time? Excuses? Yourself?
Just because your dream hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t. But you have to look at what you want to achieve and why you haven’t done it, make some changes, and get back out on the road.
And remember you don’t have to be perfect. I still get beeped at at least once a day.