they're only words with a tidal wave of heart behind them

Hold onto the progress you have made.

It says that in the bible somewhere. It's an important command, especially considering how often we fail, and fall, and lose.

Imagine yourself walking from San Francisco to Wilmington to visit your grandmother. Imagine how much you love her and how happy that she'll be to see you. Think about looking at your feet, watching them take each step. You can see the ground beneath you pass by so quickly. You look up. There is so much beauty around. Such a drastic difference from the beauty that you saw yesterday, let alone last week. Mountains. Fields. Old cities. New cities. Families on farms. Places that humans haven't touched. Blue skies. Grey skies. Night skies. Dusk skies. So you imagine the satisfaction of seeing so much of the beauty of the journey you're on, and how much more beautiful it's getting as you near your destination.

Now imagine if every time you had to stop and rest, or every time you had to stop and eat, or every time your leg got a cramp or you got sidetracked by a cool souvenir shop or stone carving or car accident that you saw..... anytime this happened...... you suddenly were back at the beginning. Like an instant teleportation back to the start. Sure, you'd get to enjoy that part of the journey again.... but you wouldn't be any closer to the goal. Your grandmother would be missing out on what you have to give.

So hold onto the progress you have made. Don't allow yourself to buy into the idea that you get warped back to the beginning each time that you mess up. Hold onto your progress. When you stand back up, stand where you were, and walk where you were going.