"You are forgetting how far you have come"

I've come to understand the saying, "You don't get over trauma, you get through it" as a motivation to continue forward regardless of what life may throw our way. Too many of us are guilty of pressing our nose to the grinder, working hard and never once looking up to admire where we stand in our journey.

Instead, we convince ourselves that whatever challenge standing in front of us is much harder than anything we ever experienced prior, and with it, we push our previous successes to the back burner to burn and be forgotten. As if they never mattered.

But if you never look back, you won't ever see the mountains, valleys and rivers you crossed to reach the very spot you stand in now. Forgetting the people you met along the way, the impact they left on your heart and the lessons you learned from them. The celebrations you once held after each success and the sheer joy that once enveloped you as you conquered yet another trying terrain.

Our past experiences are our only reminders of how we reached for more and the valuable lessons that came from when we failed and when we succeeded.

Our experiences teach us who we want to interact with, what we want to do and even how we want to live, but if we never stop to look back on all that we overcame we can never appreciate who we used to be.

It's incredibly easy to fall into the traps of everyday life and forget every trial that you overcame before the one standing in front of you now. Convincing ourselves that this battle is harder, or more important than the last one. But is it really?

How will you ever learn to walk if you never remembered how you learned to crawl? How to grill the perfect steak if you block out the memory of the first one you ever charred?

You are forgetting how far you have come, and I strongly urge you to remember the obstacles that brought you to where you stand today.

Every salty tear that once touched your lips as you celebrated well-deserved success. The sensation of brick hitting your knees as your legs give out alongside everything else you once thought was right in your life. But most importantly, the moment you got back up, wiping the tears and mascara that you once allowed to streak your face.

I will admit that I still have much in my life that I want to accomplish and fix. I too hunger for the day I can see my abs again, but I hope I never forget the hard work and time that went into fitting back into my size 2 jeans. The same hard work that led to late nights and stressing over exam scores that I believed would lead to my detriment, but instead, lead to an academic medal on graduation day.

You see, success will never be a straight path. It is a tumultuous journey, filled with random turns in different directions containing extreme inclines, incredibly narrow walkways and chasms that you must find a way to jump or fly over.

But when you finally reach whatever success it is that you seek, I hope you choose to turn around. So that you might remember what lengths you took to overcome each obstacle on the journey and validate yourself in knowing that you made it.

Because you will.

But in the end, it will never matter that you reached success. You will forget that sooner than you think, and all that will stay is the strength you now feel in your legs as you climb the next mountain with more ease, or in your ability to withstand one more punch than last time.

I know right now the mountain standing in front of you may seem incredibly daunting and more impossible than the last, but take heart.

You are an incredibly gifted individual with more life and opportunity flowing through your veins than you can ever possibly imagine. Just don't forget to take a moment to look back on all that you've overcome because after all, it's what led you to where you stand today. Steadfast and capable of taking on whatever lies ahead.