There’s an old maritime saying “The captain goes down with the ship” meaning the sea captain holds ultimate responsibility for both their ship and anyone embarking on the journey with them. 

I work in storytelling and whenever I tell a story online, I seem to connect with a lot of people who feel like they aren’t writing the story of their dreams or even have control of the story being written. 

I’ve gotten over 50,000 comments just in the last month across various videos that have gotten tens of millions of views and I think it’s because people wake up one day and realize the ship they’re going down with is not the one they wanted to captain. 

Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of bad days. There’s no short supply of aches, pains or worries, but I do feel like if I go down now, I won’t be going down without the fight of my life. The worst feeling is going down without a fight, losing control, and having no say in your destiny.

Like most people, there have been times I felt stuck. The one thing that got me out of it was playing the long game, or another way to put it is to say, “have a long-term vision”.

This doesn’t immediately pull you out of your situation, but it sets the course to do so.

Anything worthwhile takes time. 

How can you weather the seas and prepare for a storm if you aren’t looking out into the horizon?

Everyone must go through times of hopelessness, despair or days where they just couldn’t see the light. I have indeed felt that way, but I knew that one day I wouldn’t have to.

By having a long-term vision, you’ll be able to persevere through a lot of tough years and continue to chip away at the ultimate goal. 

My encouragement to you is this: If you don’t feel like you are on the right ship, you simply need to refocus your energy. Little improvements in diet, sleep, exercise, and the type of content you consume all will point you in a better direction. There is a lot of science to back this up, but we’ll save that for another day.

The course you set will dictate where you end up, and everyone is capable of making small changes.