(image by c_ambler, used under CC BY 2.0, modified from original.)

Last year right around this time, my friend Jessie and I went to one of those home party things where a woman was selling body wraps. We were promised that if we wrapped these things around our stomach once or twice a week, then in just a few short months, we’d be nice and skinny.

We both knew deep down how ridiculous an idea that was, and yet… we still hoped. How awesome would that be? To wrap a piece of paper with some jelly-ish kind of stuff around our tummies once a week and lose weight? No dieting? No hard work? Uh…sign me up!

We both bought some wraps. We both tried them for a little while. And then we both gave up on them. (They didn’t work…duh.) But then Jessie went on a real quest. No more jellied tummy wraps for her. She started working out, and she did it almost every day.

This was one year ago. As of several weeks ago, she has dropped a total of 50 pounds. FIFTY POUNDS!

So of course, I jumped right on to that bandwagon. I’ve got a good 15 pounds I want to lose, just to start. Since Jessie is now coaching other people in weight loss, she got me all hooked up on a new workout routine. I’ve been at it for 2 and a half weeks, 6 days a week… and you know what?

I haven’t lost one. single. flippin’. pound.

I felt totally defeated this morning when I realized it. I looked at my sweaty self in the mirror, and asked myself, “Staci, why are you even doing this? You’re killing yourself and you’re seeing zero results. Just give up. You should have a beer.”

And then I thought of blogging, because I’m a major dork and I think about blogging a lot.

And I thought about how when I started, it took forever before I started seeing any benefit from it.

When I first began blogging for my ornament business, no one was reading my posts. I felt like I was totally wasting my time.

But after a year and a half, I was bringing in tens of thousands of monthly visitors. The snowball effect began, from all of that work I’d been putting in all along. My dream of getting daily sales started coming true.

What if I’d stopped way back in the beginning, when I felt completely discouraged and unsure of what I was even doing?

What if Jessie had stopped? She didn’t drop all that weight in her first 2 weeks of working out. But she kept going, even when she wasn’t actually seeing the results, and now a year later, she’s 50 pounds lighter.

Nothing worthwhile is going to happen overnight. Even those things you see around you that look like overnight successes… they weren’t. Time, work, and persistence went in behind the scenes. But all too often, we don’t allow ourselves that time. We want it NOW. And then, when it doesn’t happen now, we give up… when it was way too soon to give up.

Is there anything that you’re working on right now? Or struggling with? Maybe it’s something with your business, or it’s blogging, or it’s weight loss (and if it’s weight loss, pay Jessie a visit)… but whatever it is, don’t stop. I’m not going to either.

In a couple of weeks, there might not be much of a difference. There might not be any difference. But what will things look like in a year from now?

I have a very good feeling that in a year from now, it will have been worth it.