The Road To Greatness Isn't Pretty

Long time ago I watched a documentary about the training Usain Bolt had to follow every day. It was difficult. Hours and hours of physical workout that stretched not only his physical ability, but also his mental endurance. Usain and his trainer knew that a one-time success in a race was not enough. He wanted to leave a legacy and winning one medal in the Olympic Games was just but a little part of the greatness he was looking for. Usain wanted to be the best athlete, the best runner and the faster sprinter in history. And one thing that he learned along the way is that the road to greatness is not pretty.

Most of us have dreams about what we want to do, achieve and become in life. Some people find very early in their lives what they want to do, whereas some others take a little bit longer. But what's common among everyone is that very often we don't see the price that we have to pay to get to where want to be. The road to greatness is not pretty, as Usain and many others have found. Greatness requires a lot of sacrifices, pain, patience and resilience.

We usually get confused by the meaning of success and greatness. Success is temporary and could be either the result of hard work or good luck. But as temporary as it is, success comes and goes. People who get too attached to it without realizing its transient nature are the ones who truly have hard time in moments of difficulty or challenges. Success is like a tasty meal we enjoy, but leaves us hungry at the end.

On the other hand, greatness is a long-term state. It is the healthy food that we can eat, fulfill our hunger and doesn’t make us fat! Greatness doesn’t equal success all the time, precisely because the road to greatness is full of difficulties and failures. Understanding the difference between success and greatness is not just about the semantic of the words, but the meaning they have in our lives. Frustration and desperation come easily to people who are seeking quick success. They simply break down in times of adversity. But for those who are seeking to live a great life, and leave a great legacy, adversities are nothing more than a milestone in the road to greatness.

There are two important things for us to keep in mind in the journey for the pursuit of our dreams and greatness. The first one is that our dreams are worth the sacrifices. That nothing valuable and interesting in life comes easy. Remember, success is temporary, but achieving our dreams leaves a legacy that lasts forever. What really matters in life will not come to us wrapped as gift. Rather, what is really valuable is like a rose, it is pretty but always comes with thorns. In life, that means that our dreams will be always surrounded by uncertainties, difficulties, failures and challenges. Once again, there's nothing truly worth in life that doesn't require some level of personal pain. Like Usain Bolt, leaving a great legacy hurt a lot in the body and mind. But, like Usain, we have to suck it up, suffer, learn and achieve our dreams.

The second important thing to keep in mind is to fully enjoy the adventure of life. Enjoyment comes in different ways. For example, Usain Bolt wins a race and gets a medal. That's a success and he's happy about it. But next race he loses to another runner and gets frustrated and anger.  In reality, when we look at greatness instead of success, failures become nothing more than a lesson that makes us stronger, more resilient, skillful and capable. In the road to greatness, it is fundamental to find enjoyment even in those adversities. It is essential to see challenges and failures as opportunities to learn and make it better next time. Like Usain, we should know that success is a temporary event in life, whereas greatness is built throughout the entire journey.  

Greatness is comprised by successes, failures, learnings and enjoyment. Success is kind of a pike in life, whereas greatness is sustainable happiness that comes with the pursuit of our dreams and passions. The road to greatness is tough, bumpy and difficult. If we expect otherwise and want greatness to be easy, then we are creating an environment for permanent frustration and anxiety. Even though we might be lucky and create something that makes us famous or rich overnight (which is very uncommon!), for most people it is most likely that we have to build out greatness over a long period of time.

The road to greatness isn't pretty. It will suck up our energy, enthusiasm and optimism. In the road to greatness we will be brought down to our knees, we will sacrifice many things and suffer. It will be painful. It’s never easy. Usain Bolt probably didn’t love waking up at 4 a.m. every day to go out and train for 10 hours. But he did it, because it was needed to leave his legacy.

Like Usain, and many others, we have to go through the hardest trainings to achieve the best. And we are the only ones with the capacity to define what “the best” is for us. The challenges that we will face in life will be as big as the size of the dreams we want to pursue. So, if we set ourselves for easy dreams, achieving them might be easy. But if we set great dreams for our life, great challenges will be on the way to teach us how much valuable our dreams are. The road to greatness isn’t pretty, but greatness is. And it is always up to us to decide whether we want to go along that road or not.

Follow me on Twitter: @erubio_p
Visit my blog: www.innovationdev.org

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About the Author: Enrique Rubio is an Electronic Engineer and a Fulbright scholar with an Executive Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Syracuse University. Enrique is passionate about leadership, business and social entrepreneurship, curiosity, creativity and innovation. He is a blogger and podcaster, and also a competitive ultrarunner. Visit the blog: Innovation for Development and Podcast. Click here to follow Enrique on Twitter. 

Disclaimer: opinions are my own and not the views of my past or current employer