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"