Positive thinker, have you ever experienced a time when you wanted to give up? I’m sure you have because it’s a perfectly natural response to want to give up on something when it becomes too difficult to complete. There seems to be something inside of us that causes us to want to give up on something after we start to think that that task is too hard to finish. For you, this feeling probably started during childhood. You might have had a subject that you struggled with in school or you might have taken up an activity that was too hard for you to participate in, and then because you didn’t excel at these things, you started to become frustrated, and then after the feeling of frustration started, you started feeling like you wanted to give up. But just because we felt like giving up doesn’t mean that giving up was an option that we always had. For some of us, there was some adult in our life (whether it was a parent, guardian, teacher or relative) that told us not to give up. We may have wanted to give up on trying to figure out that difficult math problem or on figuring out how to play the piano, but that person in our life saw the potential that we had and encouraged us to keep going even though things were tough. They were our cheerleaders and they were there telling us to keep going. We may have been down by a lot and it may have seemed like we would never win the game, but our cheerleaders were still there for us on the side lines yelling for us to keep going and to not give up.

Now that we’re adults, we don’t always have people in our corner telling us not to give up. We don’t have people there who are constantly reminding us of our potential. Yes, we still have friends and family who love us, but because we’re adults we have to learn to take responsibility for ourselves. You aren’t constantly there to remind your friends and family members of their potential 24/7, so they’re not expected to be your personal cheerleaders all the time anymore either. They were there when we were younger because we had not yet learned to cheerlead ourselves, but as we got older we were shown how to do just that and we were taught how important cheerleading for ourselves would be in our lives. So, now that we know how to do it, our friends and families don’t have to be the ones to cheer us on anymore. If we think something is difficult then we need to figure out a way to solve the problem; we can’t rely on someone else to tell us that we can’t give up whenever we hit a stumbling block. We have to find the strength to believe for ourselves that we are capable of completing the tasks that we set out to achieve.

And this is particularly important when it comes to sticking with a dream that you have. It’s one thing to give up on something that you don’t care about, but you should never give up on something as big as a dream. The more you care about something the more you should fight for it to happen. One setback is just that—a set back. Just because you didn’t achieve you dream the first time around doesn’t mean that you can’t ever achieve it. You just have to hit the drawing board again and figure out a new way to make your dream a reality. And getting back up after a failure can be difficult, but it’s something that you need to do if you ever want to make your dream happen. When you’re struggling with making a dream come true, it may seem like you’re losing the game, but there’s plenty of time left for you to go out there and win. Just because you fumbled the ball or missed the shot doesn’t mean the game is over. You just have to compose yourself, gather up the ball again and cheer yourself on to victory.

You may not have your friends or your parents constantly there next to you cheering you on, but you do have something better. Positive thinker, you have yourself! And no matter how hard you try, you can’t get rid of yourself, so you might as well be there to give yourself support. You remember how your parents never gave up on you? Well, now it’s time to be that person who never gives up on you. Go out there and be your own cheerleader positive thinker!

And remember, “Your dream doesn’t have an expiration date. Take a deep breath, and try again.”