Developing the Persistence Habit

As I mentioned in my last post that I would write a follow up article to provide concrete steps one can take to develop the persistence habit, and so here it is. The world is changing at an ever accelerating pace and it is more important now than ever to be able to adapt to these changes. The development of the unique mental strength of persistence will ensure that you are able to combat the ferocious power of repeated rejections and a myriad of other obstacles you encounter on a day to day basis.

If you strongly and truly believe in something, with every fiber of your body, through persistence you will achieve it. Today and NOW is the moment you have to decide to become a different person, decide to be one of the few people who make things happen and who receive the lion’s share of the profits. To digress a little bit I would like to share my frustration with the current model of “work” we all live by. We have been brought up in a society that believes, a child goes to school to learn to become an employee, who then goes out into the world, gets a job and stick at that job for the rest of their life. They are to work 5 or more days a week (or they are looked down upon as a slacker) and are to be grateful for the measly 20 days holiday a year. Imagine that, you spend more of your life at work than you do living and I made the personal decision that I have had ENOUGH!! My new Philosophy is now Screw Work, Let's Play and I no longer subscribe to that school of thought anymore, call me rebellious or whatever but I made the decision and so should you. I know it is not going to be easy and that is all part of the whole trap, being an employee is easy money. You just show up, do your time, make everyone happy, and a check is in you account at the end of the month, how easy can it get. That is the very reason why most people still wake up grudgingly everyday and make their way into work, they are afraid of hard! I accept how hard it is going to be and I am confident that if I persist then I will certainly achieve my goal.

Developing the persistence habit is like going to the gym, to develop a well sculptured body and defined muscles you have to train them. You should make persistence a well defined mental muscle. People always tend to find substitutes for certain things, but there is no other quality that can replace persistence.Neither superior skills nor a formal education can measure up, or intelligence, not even a charming personality.

Persistence is not something you read about in a book, or in this case, on a blog. It is simply about being and doing, about taking action, falling down, getting up and carrying on. It is about challenging yourself and willing yourself to keep on keeping on, even against all odds.

Ultimately your goal is to make persistence your way of life, you have to consciously make a choice and it begins with a burning desire to achieve a given goal. Persistence has often been described as self discipline in action and the biggest test of self discipline is the ability to persist when faced with adversarial forces.

Below are four tried and trusted steps to developing the habit of persistence:

1. Know EXACTLY what you want - we all  experience our own Alice in Wonderland moment, when we have to make a decision on which path to take when the road ahead of us reaches a fork. This this the moment you have to set your mind to the outcome you would like to achieve, otherwise “...if you do not know where you want to go, how will you know when you get there?”
2. Develop a big enough WHY - the why is going to make sure you are motivated enough to reach your goal, have a big enough why and you can rest assured that no obstacle is going to knock you off the path you have decided to carve for yourself.
3. Outline the HOW - the why is always bigger than anything else and you do not really need to know exactly how you will get to your final destination. The most important thing is that you actually set off, imagine if Christopher Columbus had only dreamt of sailing but never actually got to cast off.
4. Cultivate a positive mental attitude - it takes a positive mental attitude to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. It is nothing more than guaranteed that on your way to achieving your goals you will encounter hardships of many hues and colours. A positive mental attitude will carry you through these periods of despair.

These 4 steps will take you well on your path to developing the persistence habit and do not wait for  tomorrow to start applying them. Grab yourself a piece of paper and start writing your future today, as they always say, there is no better moment than the present.

Persistence, that which remains when the excitement is gone?

We all recall the initial excitement associated with a brand new pursuit, maybe a newly discovered hobby, sport, toy or past time. How we are flooded with energy to get out there and do something so that we continue to enjoy the benefits our new venture provides. We are on an emotional high due to the endorphin flooding the pleasure centers of our brain. Through the course of time our excitement begins to wane, and if we are not very committed to the now not so new exploit we end up giving it up all together. 

I am not immune to what I will term the “new toy effect” and I can recall a number of situations over the years when I have experienced this very phenomenon. However, the one trait separating successful people from the not so successful ones is persistence, a dogged determination of staying the course until the goal is attained. This article aims to highlight the importance of this attribute and the ways anyone can cultivate this personality trait. As in all things we have attempted to do in our lives for the first time, the beginning is always the most difficult. Imagine a kid’s first swing at the baseball, a baby taking its first step, your first attempt at driving, you get the idea. 

It does not take a special person to stick with it, all it requires is the honing of the persistence trait, developing an unwavering determination to see out your goal and all the benefits attaining your goal will bring to you. Every successful person who has ever lived has at one point or another been asked the question “how did you get to where you are today?” and in more or less the same words have alluded to the development of this very character trait. Napoleon Hill could not have summed it up any better when he said “Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel”.

If you are serious about attaining your goal then you must be serious about cultivating and nurturing the ability to persist. How many times are you willing to try your hand at something new and fail?, because there are no guarantees when you step out of your comfort zone to confront an unfamiliar environment, once, twice, or a dozen times? I am sure by now you have come across the famous story of how many attempts Thomas Edison had at making the electric light bulb, how about 10,000 times as a guess? Did I hear you gasp or it was just me, yes 10,000 attempts, now imagine that! where would you be in your life right now, if you had persisted at something you tried your hand at for 10,000 attempts and you had not given up? 

In more recent memory we have Sir James Dyson, whose autobiography I am currently reading Against the Odds: An Autobiography , and he goes into how he developed the bag-less Dyson Dc26i Cylinder Vacuum Cleaner . Have a guess at how many cyclones he built while testing out his theories? The answer is 5,127 prototypes, and if he had given up when the first or second one did not produce the desired result, we could still be stuck with dust clogged hoovers. Such was his determination to make his invention work that he worked day and night testing his theories, discounting them, going back to the drawing table, sinking deeper into debt but all was worth it in the end. He recalls a time when he was travelling around Europe trying to sell the licence to manufacture his first vacuum cleaner “…I survived on a sort of manana attitude: tomorrow would always be better”

I know the temptation to quit always seems greater, but if we are equipped with the right tools and the correct mindset to overcome this temptation, then we are already on our way to achieve our goals. In my next post I will provide you with tips and practical action steps you can take to get started. I look forward to sharing with you in my next post and until then remember "The most interesting thing about a postage stamp is the persistence with which it sticks to its job. – Napoleon Hill"

The second "tude"-Gratitude!

How many times a day do you give thanks for everything that you are and everything that you have in your life? Once, twice, three times or maybe it is never? Well it is never too late to start and there is no better time to start than NOW!

I will make this very simple for you, by just concentrating on your immediate surroundings I bet you can identify 5 blessings to be grateful for. 

1. The ability to read  - you have access to the material I am sharing with you now because of the ability to read, count yourself fortunate as there are millions of people out there who do not have access to the learning resources to further expand their worlds by reading and bettering themselves.
2. The gift of Vision - closely linked to the first blessing is the ability to explore the world visually.
3. The gift of Laughter, imagine being unable to laugh and sharing the joys of your life's experiences.
4. I AM ALIVE and therefore I am grateful every single day my alarm goes off in the morning, I have lived to see another day and to enjoy it.
5. I have a computer/smartphone therefore my life is not that bad.

Moral of the story is: your entire life is a blessing and there are a lot of things we take for granted but should be grateful for. It is the simple things which make our lives worth living, a smile from a child or loved one, the warmth of the sun on your skin, your favorite natural smell, familiar sounds and voices. By living with an attitude of gratitude you possess the ability to rise to any altitude.