Keep Going — Your Future Self Will Thank You

In a couple of years, you won’t care how long it took — only that you didn’t stop.

I don’t write here on Medium from any great literary skill.

My writing began in a much simpler way — with love. I wrote children’s illustrated books for my grandsons, little stories that somehow found their way into homes around the world. One of them, Liam Shark Boy, became a bestseller for children, which still surprises me.

I also wrote a novel based loosely on my life. Not the full truth — I wasn’t ready for that then. It held many real moments, but they were softened, reshaped, and hidden beneath fiction through the character of Georgia “Always.”

Now, I write differently.

Now, I write from the heart.

In my memoir, The Long Road of Love, I am finally telling the truth as I have lived it — not perfectly, not dramatically, but honestly.

And if there is one thing I have learned across all these years, it is this:

Keep going.

Keeping going doesn’t always look like strength.

Sometimes it is simply getting up, doing the next right thing, and refusing to let one difficult season become your whole story.

I came from a lonely childhood.

I worked in the city while still very young, learning to stand on my own without guidance or support.

So I kept going.

I met my husband, and together we made the decision to migrate to Australia.

It was the right decision at the time.

So I kept going.

Life here was not without its challenges.

Even with a good man beside me, there were difficult seasons — health struggles as a young woman, pregnancies, births, and ongoing gynaecological issues that were often exhausting and uncertain.

At the same time, I built my first business, and then another.

There were successes, but also shocks — including a betrayal through grand larceny by someone I trusted professionally. There were investments that did not perform as expected, and others that slowly grew.

Nothing followed a straight line.

Still, I kept going.

Today, I find myself in a very different season.

The financial pressure that once shaped so many of our decisions has eased. There is a sense of breathing space that only time and persistence can create.

But life does not stop handing you new chapters.

And this one is tender.

My husband is my whole life.

And now, slowly, I am watching changes that I cannot control.

There is cognitive decline — early days, not severe yet, but present enough to shift the ground beneath us.

So I keep going.

I care for him as best I can. I stay steady. I still find moments of lightness — even the familiar rhythm of gently correcting him, the way wives sometimes do.

But quietly, I ask myself:

Will I be able to do this?

My best friend says, “If anyone can do this, Stef, you can.”

And I want to believe her.

But the truth is — this feels like the hardest challenge of my life.

Because this time, I cannot fix it.

I cannot organise it, solve it, or bring it back into order.

And I have always been someone who likes to be in control.

So now, keeping going looks different.

It is softer.
More patient.
Less certain.
But still — it is there.

There have been times in my life when I wasn’t sure how I would get through.

Not in dramatic ways — just quietly, in those moments when things feel uncertain, and you wonder what lies ahead.

Looking back now, I can see that I didn’t solve everything.

I simply kept going.

A step at a time.
A day at a time.

And somehow, life unfolded.

Now, in a different and more tender season, I find myself returning to that same quiet reminder.

You may not feel ready for what lies ahead — and perhaps none of us ever truly are.

We grow into it, gently, as we go.

And this is why I say this to you with my whole heart:

Keep going.
Not because it is easy.
Because your future self will one day need what you are building now.

They will need the steadiness you practise today.

They will need the skills you learn the hard way.

They will need the quiet courage you prove to yourself in moments no one else sees.

They will need the small protections you put in place — your savings, your health, your relationships, your routines, the things that do not feel urgent now, but become essential later.

Money matters — not for the luxuries we imagine when we are young, but for the times when life asks more of us than we expected.

Not for the cruise, or the new clothes, or the next house.

But for the moments when you need support, stability, and space to breathe.

So build that, while you can.

Work for it.

Prepare quietly.

Because one day, life will change.

And when it does, you will not be starting from nothing.

Most of all, your future self will need you to become someone who knows — deeply and without question, that you can face a hard season and still keep your heart open.

You may not feel ready for what lies ahead — but you are becoming ready.

Keep going.

One day, you will understand why you had to.

I would be interested to hear what “keeping going” has meant in your own life.

Thank you for reading, dear friends ღ.

© Stephanie Roberts