The other day I was having a conversation with a good friend that had recently switched to work for a new organization. The previous organization wasn’t the right fit and long term didn’t match my friend’s personal goals and vision. Now, the organization and vision align extremely well. As we were talking through the excitement of the new opportunity, one of his comments hit hard – “it took a lot of no’s to finally get to this opportunity”.

This great perspective from my friend reminded me of one of the hardest lessons I’ve learned in my journey. Life doesn’t owe us a definitive timeframe to when we’ll hear the word yes. We could be doing all the right things, and that yes still may not be here. We aren’t owed anything externally. But internally, we do owe ourselves to remain focused on achieving our goal. We owe ourselves to see it through because there eventually will be a yes.

Sometimes we get so focused on a timeline that in our minds we’ve built as an expectation. While I love the idea of setting target dates for what we want to accomplish, reality doesn’t always have the same timeline. When timelines don’t match expectation, we naturally get frustrated. Frustration leads to energy pulling away from what we are trying to accomplish and at times, we decide to take the easier route and move on to something else. The no’s win and we never see it through to yes.

But the yes exists. Reality and our expectations don’t always align but there is a yes if we are willing to persevere through all the no’s. Not only persevere through the no’s, but also take the lessons learned from these no’s to be a better version of ourself when that yes does finally happen. The strength we gain from working through the no’s to persevere to finding a yes is powerful and can help propel us forward to many other great opportunities.

Take your step: there’s a good chance you have a goal right now where you continue to run into hurdles and no’s. It’s almost like life is telling you this goal is not going to happen. It’s a test to see if you’re willing to withstand the no’s and persevere. Make the decision to stick with it and understand the timeline you’ve built may not exactly align with reality, but there’s a yes waiting for you.