5 things That Will Hurt You!

A few weeks ago, I shared a topic concerning "passion" with you......

I just want to piggy-back on that a little further because even being passionate about a goal or cause, there's another added mental factor you must have to make it all the way through and that's "perseverance" like I talked about last week.

You see, perseverance is a trait that can be cultivated, if you find that you don't have enough of it, but the initial step to developing it is to eliminate it's five greatest enemies I want to share with you today.

1) A Lifestyle of Giving up A little boy had been promised ice-cream
by his grandfather if he was good while they were out shopping. After a few hours, the little boy asked "How much longer will it be?"
"Not too much longer", the grandfather replied, "we just have one more stop we need to make." "I don't know if I can make it grandpa", the little boy then replied, "I can be good. I just can't be good enough long enough." When we are kids and we don't follow through on a task, people often give us a break. That's to be expected. Children tend to jump from one activity to another and to bounce from idea to idea. Adults can't do that and expect to be successful. If you have the desire to be successful, you need to be consistent and persistent. Opportunities without persistence will be lost. If you have a habit of giving up, you need to overcome it to be successful.

2) Believing That Life Should Be Easy Just like a marraige, there will be times you'll feel like giving up, but hanging in there and continuing to try is often the way to make it through. Do you want to know the biggest characteristic that separates those from reaching there goals versus those that don't?........expectations. Those that don't expect to succeed right away, and view their failures as a reason to recommit and a reminder to refocus on their goals with more determination experience have great deal more success in their lives than those that want success immediatley.

3) Believing That Success Is A Destination So you've reached a goal......now what? Most people, once reaching a milestone in a given opportunity will suddenly have the attitude of once thinking why not about every opportunity that approached them to thinking but why when an opportunity arose. They simply lose that "hunger."
If you think you've arrived, then you're in trouble. As soon as you think you no longer need to work to make progress, you'll begin to lose ground.

4) A Lack Of Resiliency What is it? Think of it metaphorically speaking as a twig with a fresh, green living core. When twisted out of shape, it bends, but it doesn't break; instead it springs back and continues growing. It's an excellent description of how we must be if we desire to persevere through adversity and make the most of the talent we have. We must not become dry, brittle, and inflexible. And we must have the mindset of bouncing back, no matter how we may feel. "You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days you feel good." ~ Jerry West

5) Lacking A Vision Everything that is created is actually created twice. First it's created mentally; then it's created physically. Where does that mental creation come from? The answer is vision. People who display perseverence keep a larger vision in mind as they toil away at their craft or profession. They see in their mind what they want to create or to do, and they keep working toward it as they labor. A very good friend of mind is a fasion designer who quite often she shares her projects that she's worked on or in the process of working on as pictures on notebook paper......All works of incredible designs that started with a picture in her mind! You have to see the end from the beginning and it starts with a vision.

Clearing away these five enemies of perseverence is a preliminary step to becoming all the you can be and developing perseverence. Right thinking always precedes action and l'll shed a little bit more light on that tomorrow!