It's very easy to become discouraged when you see nothing happening or when it looks like your goal will never be achieved.
These tiny seeds, pictured here (compared to a dime for size reference), know that locked within them are the beginning of the greatest tree mankind has ever known. This tiny seed never gives up, never doubts, never gets discouraged. It has lots to overcome before it can become a full grown tree. It must first break out of its shell, then it has to grow and push its way through the dirt, and FINALLY it becomes a tiny seedling.
Now the small seedling faces a new set of challenges. It's so small that things could step on it and destroy it, it could be snuffed out by all the other plants fighting for the water, sunlight, and soil, or it could look at its full grown brothers around it and think "I will never be that great". But it doesn't! It stays strong. Through storms and rain and snow and ice and heat and drought and things eating at it and bugs and animals running over it and on it. All the while growing ever so slightly, so slight that your eye alone could never notice it. For years and years this goes on, day and night, 24/7, 365 days a year. It would be easy for the small sapling to quit, quitting is the easy way out. Quitting is the cowards way out. Don't take the easy way out. Never give up, never quit, even when it looks like that would be the best solution at the moment. The true best solution is to stick it out. The sun always comes out after the rain, but for life to survive we need both the rain and the sun. Too much of either one and life ceases to exist.Just as in our own lives we need both the times where its rainy and the sun isn't visible (even though it's still there, it never moves, only our perception of where it is changes) so that when the rain ends and sun emerges the fruit of our lives will have the water from the "rain" to grow when the sun shines.
Lets rejoin our small sapling now years later. It NEVER gave up. It encouraged itself to continue forward. Instead of seeing other trees as an intimidation it CHOSE to see them as an inspiration of what it would one day become. So by now you're probably asking "So? What did it become?" The answer is:
The great and mighty redwood tree, or Giant Sequoya. The most massive tree humans have ever known.
Up to 60 FEET in diameter! These trees average life span is 700 YEARS!! The average height is 350 FEET!! The redwood has one of the smallest seeds of any tree species, yet it grows to become one of the oldest and largest, most powerful trees the world has ever known! The seed is not much bigger than a spec of dirt, in fact most people would never even notice it. But the redwood tree doesn't care about any of that, it just stays strong and encourages itself to grow and succeed and continue growing even if it has setbacks, loses some branches, gets some battle scars, or has any number of obstacles to overcome.
What I'm trying to impart to you is that the seed for you to become great is inside of you! Words, thoughts and plans of encouragement are the sunlight and water for your seed! Think how much greater you are than a tree! You can learn, see, hear, feel, change, adapt and come up with new ideas! The redwood tree can only stay where its planted, it can't move, see, speak, hear, or think like we can, yet look what it becomes!
So encourage yourself today! Draw a picture of your goal, your end result of where you want to be! Tell yourself constantly that it will happen! Master the art of self talk! Tell yourself great things about you today! ENCOURAGE, ENCOURAGE, ENCOURAGE YOURSELF ALL THE TIME!!
If you need some help with encouragement just picture the tiny redwood seed and the massively, amazing tree it becomes! Here is some more help from me to you to encourage yourself:
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