(speech in the video is from the original motivational speech by Fearless Motivation).

Every journey begins with the first step.

My desire to write a novel was born more than 2 decades ago when I fell in love with the written word and the characters and stories in my head were more real than the people in my everyday life. As I got older I wrote less and less as adult life got in the way and I gave up more times than I can count. The easy self-confidence in my abilities I had as a teen gave way to all of the knocks and blows I’d endured in my adult life and slowly but surely I had talked myself out of even getting started.

But today I come full circle because today I believe in myself and will write with all of the wisdom and life experience I've gained over the years. Today I begin and tomorrow I will write again. And every day I will keep writing until I reach my goal of being a published author.

Whatever your goal is…whether it’s to lose weight, stabilize your finances, buy a home, travel more, or just become a better version of yourself today than you were yesterday: you are worthy of your dreams and goals. You have to believe that and pursue it daily. Some days will be better than others and some days you may fall down or feel like you’ve failed completely. But you only fail if you quit. Getting back up and continuing on the journey is what separates those who win and those who lose because YOU are your only competition. Not the girl in the next cubicle at work, not your pretty neighbor that always has on the red bottoms or stays with the fresh hairdo or the new man, and certainly not any of the women in your friend group.

I talk to many women from many walks of life and the biggest indicator of their success is their attitude. Having a negative attitude won’t get anyone very far; neither will staring harder at past disappointments versus striving to overcome them. It can be easy to complain and list out all of your obstacles and reasons you think you don’t deserve it or will fail, but wouldn’t it make more sense to list out the ways you are going to overcome each of those challenges and how you plan to tackle each one step by step, day by day? Yes, some of us have had it hard but guess what? Many of us have had it even harder.

Because whether you win or whether you lose, whatever you believe about yourself is exactly right. So keep showing up for yourself and don’t quit. Maybe I won’t be a best-selling novelist like I always dreamed but I definitely won’t ever get the chance if I never even give myself the opportunity.