In recent weeks I've been thinking about something I saw in one of Rabbi Noach Weinberg’s books where he speaks about reaching our goals. He says that the most common reason we don’t reach our goals is because it feels “heavy”, “painful” or “hard”, and therefore we don’t end up doing enough to reach our goals. So he says, “Do you want to know what is the secret to reaching your goals even when it feels so hard? The secret is to “Keep your eyes on the ball”. And he explains with an example. What would happen if you asked a bunch of kids to play basketball with you on a hot summer day, would they play? Of course they would! And, you'd probably have a hard time to get them to stop, even after a half hour!
But what would happen if you asked those same kids to run, stretch, jump, and to do all the things they do while playing Basketball, only without the ball? They'd probably beg to stop after 2 minutes!
So if you think about it, there isn't much difference between those kids and us. If we really yearn to reach whatever goal we're aiming for, then we're keeping our eyes on the ball and we won't feel the heaviness and difficulty in the process!