In a bit of a gamble, I decided to plant some broccolini at the end of last summer. I was a new gardener and the temperatures that summer were particularly brutal. It was work to keep my plants alive.

But people swore that gardening in the fall was easier, so I planted a total of eight broccolini plants along with a smattering of other plants like chard, kale, and cauliflower.

I had no idea the ordeal I was in for.

First, the summer heat lasted for another month or so which meant the bugs lasted longer than normal. Broccolini in particular is susceptible to cabbage moth caterpillars. You’ve undoubtedly seen them, the moths. They have white wings with a small black dot. One moth can lay 250-300 eggs over two weeks, and if you don’t catch those eggs before they hatch, you get tiny green caterpillars, who are the exact same green as the leaves themselves, eating big holes in your plants.

So there I was, out in the backyard with a fly swatter, trying to bully the moths away from my plants. This was ineffective, but probably hilarious entertainment for any neighbors with a view of our backyard. Fortunately, the broccolini and I both survived that embarrassment until it got cooler and the moths disappeared.

These were the good days. I got immeasurable joy taking the broccolini from garden to plate in about ten minutes. Nothing in the world tastes as good as fresh food you’ve grown yourself.

Then I started finding entire leaves missing, with just a tiny bit of stem left on the ground to reassure me I wasn’t crazy. It was rats. If I thought caterpillars were voracious, well, I misunderstood.

I tried all sorts of “home remedies” for keeping the rats away. First mint soaked cotton pads. No effect. Then cayenne pepper sprinkled on the leaves. The cayenne sort of worked. But the plants are large, which required me to buy the spice in half pound installments, since it came off every time it rained and had to be reapplied. It also turned my plants into a container of pepper spray any time there was a stiff breeze.

Like all good stories, we come to the moment of doom. The rats had been gradually increasing their tolerance for spicy food. I came out one morning to find one plant had been eaten down to sticks. Not a single leaf remained. The others had claw marks along their stems as the rats gnawed their way to the new growth wherever they found it.

I had no idea how many rats I was dealing with and the exterminators I called said this was a lost cause. What are you going to do, they asked, trap all the rats in the neighborhood? That’s a lot of rats.

I was undeterred.

I don’t mean I wasn’t despondent at times. Based on what other gardeners told me, I couldn't see a way to be successful. Instead, people told me sad stories of how rats had permanently ended their gardening hobby.

So I was undeterred but I also wasn’t optimistic. The odds, like in the Hunger Games, were not actually in my favor.

But I loved those plants. I couldn’t imagine giving up on gardening. I got a tip to check out some motion activated units that flashed a light and made a noise that rats apparently find annoying. A noise that my husband also found annoying, but hey, this is for the plants. Sacrifices must be made.

Like the cayenne, the annoying lights/sirens sort of worked. Long enough for me to put out a trap (electric shock, not poison) and catch two rats. I didn’t necessarily rejoice in this—they’re part of nature too—but after that, my broccolini stopped disappearing. I did not, as it turned out, have to kill an entire neighborhood of rats.

I took two things away from this experience. First, I hear a lot about the importance of hope in getting people to take action when things are hard. But I don’t think hope matters nearly as much as we think. Sometimes, it is the very belief in the impossibility of a task that galvanizes you to get creative, to be persistent, and to ask for help.

People may try to tell you what the outcome of a particular situation will be, but never forget that neither you nor they know what will work or when. Most pundits are wrong (including the pundit in your bathroom mirror). The less hope you have, the less judgement and expectation you carry around with you, which can make really hard things sometimes feel easier.

Second, people and plants and institutions will surprise you with their ability to bounce back. The plant that got decimated down to sticks? I assumed it was dead, so I stuck one of my light/sound things in its pot and let the squirrels go crazy digging up the soil. To my surprise, the plant is not only growing again, but it actually looks healthier than prior to the rats’ arrival. This is a real phenomena, called post-traumatic growth, where negative experiences spur positive change.

That doesn’t mean everything always bounces back. I’m not showing you photos of my stunted, dried up swiss chard, which people assured me was “idiot proof.” Or the pair of brussels sprouts plants that got decimated by aphids. I swear the villain of my next book is going to be an aphid.

But it does mean that a moment of doom is rarely the end of the story. You can try again, try something different. Build something back from scratch that's better than the original, having learned from your mistakes. Like the chard—yesterday I planted two chard seeds into a new planter to see if this idiot can get different results.

You might argue that your moment of doom is nothing like rats in the garden. You might say (rightly) that I can’t promise you success.

But if there’s anything I learned as a coach, it’s that you will take enormous pride in trying. When I asked my coaching clients what they were most proud of, over and over they told me it was tackling something they didn’t think they could do, or someone else said they couldn’t do—regardless of whether they were successful in achieving the goal itself.

So don’t worry if you don’t have hope right now. It’s not required. Focus on growth, something you learn a lot about in the garden, whether that growth is your own or the growth you bring about in the world. Either way, it’s worth the effort.