I’ve written before about the hardest part of getting healthy and fit; starting. While that’s the biggest hurdle for most people (and it was for me, too!), the next challenge is to keep going even when you don’t necessarily feel like you’re making progress. It’s even harder when you see the scale rise when you’re doing everything right, or after a lapse in your diet.

The journey is an uphill battle with doubts, temptations, fatigue, and others weighing you down and trying to pull you back from making progress. The true test of character is how you handle adversity, and sticking to the plan is no different.

For me, the solution was to make my goal not just something I was willing to work towards, but something I wasn’t willing to give up on or to trade anything else for. It’s one thing to want success; it’s another to refuse to accept defeat.

It’s not easy. Anything worth having takes effort and sometimes even some sacrifice. But in the end, when you succeed, you’ll not only realize the benefits of being healthier and fitter, but you’ll take pride in knowing you succeeded where you didn’t think you could, and you made it past the adversity and met and defeated the challenges.