The Truth About Overnight Success

Emma Colsey-Nicholls
3 min readFeb 24, 2022

Why This Is Essential To Reaching Your Goals

Photo by Artur Aldyrkhanov on Unsplash

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”- Winston Churchill

It can be a bitter pill to swallow, especially when you feel you are in the pit of yet another goal still hanging out of reach.

Is it actually possible for me too?

I know I have some steely determination, I can feel it in my heart and soul that there are great things coming and yet the contemplation… is it determination or delusion?

I love reading success stories. Devouring articles on Medium, reading or listening to books, absorbing hours of podcasts and online courses. I love the feeling of inspiration that comes with hearing just one small element and then something clicks me into action.

Of all the articles, podcasts, courses, the autobiographies that I have consumed, all of them have one truth in common.

There is no such thing as an overnight success.

Every single story I have ever read or heard about is from a person that has gone through years of failure. Years of rejections, self-doubt, challenges and pit falls.

  • Walt Disney was told he lacked creativity
  • Oprah Winfrey was told she just want’ right for TV
  • J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter pitch got rejected 12 times
  • Abraham Lincoln failed at business school, had a nervous breakdown, got defeated in his run for presidency before becoming president.
  • Michael Jordan said ““I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

No movie was ever made by someone who had everything handed to them on a plate.

Maybe this is just what you need to hear right now. I know it’s exactly what I need to tell myself to keep on going, but…..

Emma Colsey-Nicholls

Women’s Health and lifestyle coach. Top writer in Health. I write about health, habit creation and how to be a happier you. https://emmacolseynicholls.co.uk