PERSIST TO SUCCEED

Remember?  You lifted yourself up against the couch.  You’d been trying this for weeks.  You let go, and found yourself back on the floor.  Ring a bell?  You lifted yourself up again despite the loss of energy from the previous attempt.  You found the floor again.  How many times was this repeated before you successfully took your first step?  How many times was that first step repeated before taking that second step before finding the floor again?

The point is you don’t need to look to Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or Arnold Schwarzenegger for examples of persistence.  You were a shining example of persistence from the very beginning of your existence.  We could explore how you learned to communicate, crawl, ride a bike, or read.  We could even go further back and make the case that you already successfully overcame the most difficult odds you will ever be faced with at the moment of your conception.  Napoleon Hill makes this argument in Success through a Positive Mental Attitude.  YOUR life is full of examples of the effectiveness of persistence.  You have been virtually unstoppable in most of your endeavors because you had a goal and persisted.  In fact, whenever you’ve persisted you’ve succeeded.  If you’ve been successful at this sometimes, without thinking, why can’t you consciously persist all the time and be successful all the time?  You can.  Have you tried?

Persistence implies action.  Persistent action in the face of obstacles creates momentum.  Once you have momentum and continue to persist it becomes easier to deal with and conquer obstacles to your success.  Think about pushing a car.  The hardest part is starting, then you persist despite the resistance, and at that moment the car moves.  You continue persisting and it gets easier and easier.  Think of a new job and learning the new stuff. As you learn, and do, you have to think less and less.  The same thing happens when learning an instrument or learning a new language.  Persistence also develops desire, dedication, creativity, and results because you become more and more invested in your success.

Every time we applied persistence as an infant, we had an end in mind.  We were taking those steps because we were going to walk, and then run.  We fumbled through bizarre words because we were going to be understood.  As a leader and in life in general, find a goal and persist until you reach that goal.  You can’t effectively lead and expect people to change for the better when you can’t persist through resistance yourself.  You are dependable if you are persistent because by definition you keep going until you reach the goal.  And with this persistence you’ll gain the momentum that will make you virtually unstoppable.