“I may get there slowly, but I'll go through anything to get there,” I tell my new filmmaking friend. “I'm like a steamroller.”

I was talking about my screenwriting career to someone who had just made her second film. We shared stories about our journeys.

She's an actress who wrote movies that she could act in.

I'm a writer who wrote movies that I could be proud of.

The road to everyone's dream is different but somehow very similar.

It can be long when you're tired and want to sleep.

Your headlamps fade out when night falls.

Your wipers wipe out when the rainstorm drops.

The diners are closed when you're hungry.

The rest stops are closed when you need relief.

Most of your work is unrecognized.

When your work is recognized, it may be unacknowledged.

When it's acknowledged, feedback can be brutal.

You're filled with self-doubt. Frustration. Rage.

So you drive faster but the road ahead gets longer too and now you're running low on gas.

The road is out of your control, so why do we get on it in the first place?

Because this is your road and there's nowhere in the world you'd rather be.

You know that if you keep going you will eventually find an open diner with hot coffee and clean bathrooms and blueberry pie like you wouldn't believe.

Trying to rush the process is like speeding up to get to a gas station when you're running on empty.

Sometimes going faster isn't better.

Sometimes you need to be a steamroller.

What do you think of when you hear the word “steamroller?”

Slow? Steady? Loud?

It flattens the cartoon character into the wet tarmac?

I thought of it as steady, persistent, will go through walls.

I told another friend today about my steamroller analogy.

“You crashing through walls and rolling over obstacles sounds painful and destructive. How about think of it as you laying roads?” he asks.

Well if that didn't just blow my mind.

I had looked at my dogged persistence as something that destroyed obstacles in its path.

No wonder all the diners and rest stops were shut. They thought I'd destroy them too!

So what if I look at the same journey as me laying my own road?

Now I'm creating something of value.

Workers will help me build it.

Diners and rest stops will open up to feed and relieve us.

Because instead of cutting a destructive trench through treasured land, we're building the road of our dreams that will benefit everyone.