How Success Happens - Perseverance
“Fall 7 times, get up 8.”
-Japanese Proverb.
Perseverence is the second quality on a series on How Success Happens. The first was Consistency. You can read that newsletter here.
It's not horse power, but your staying power that will secure your success. Anyone can do something with intensity for a while, but it takes intentionality to consistently show up until you win.
Success is an uphill climb with many twists and turns, peaks and troughs. No one climbs a mountain accidentally; you have to determine in your heart and mind that you are going after what you want, then take deliberate action toward it. As James Clear said, in Atomic Habits, then every action becomes a vote for your desire.
Success takes perseverance because it often appears after a series of failures, any of which could have made a person quit, but when they don't, success happens.
“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
-Winston Churchill.
Perseverance is defined as "persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success."
If you have struggled to succeed at what you started, it may be because you have been short on perseverance.
Here's a 5-part process to build it.
1. Set Your Intention (Mindset)
There is power in making a conscious choice to do something. It sets in motion a series of synergistic factors in your brain and environment that work together to turn the odds in your favor.
Set your intention by speaking it out to yourself, writing it down, and even announcing it to others - it's out now! You've created accountability - now you'll have to follow through!
So, set the intention to not let up until you succeed and keep setting that intention each time you have a choice to either take another action toward your desired achievement, or to throw in the towel.
2. Find Your Tribe (Community)
Find people pursuing similar interests and achieving similar goals and strategically invest focused time and effort with them.
This will help you form and solidify your identity as a person that can start, persevere, and succeed at your target pursuit. The more you immerse yourself in the environment of your desired pursuit, the more you identify with it, and the greater your chances of achieving what you set out to do.
You are more likely to have an accountability partner and cheerleader you can call on from this group to encourage you to keep going when you feel you are about to give up.
3. Failure-Proof Your Success (Process)
Create a process you will go through when you fail (because you will) to help you reflect on, respond to, learn from, and transition through the incident so that you can get back on track to pursuing your success goal.
You may need take a day off to go through the emotions of failing and reflect on lessons learned. Or, maybe you need to walk away from it for a while before you gather the strength to get back on the saddle. Whatever you choose to do, choose it in advance so that when the failing incident occurs, it does not throw you off completely.
Check out our youtube series on How to Bounce Back From Any Setback.
“A man is great not because he hasn't failed; a man is great because failure hasn't stopped him.”
-Confucius.
4. Be Patient (Staying Power)
When you begin an effort, the newness of the experience gives you motivation and seeing movement, momentum.
Somewhere between the beginning and the end, things seem to plateau; your vision, motivation, action, results. This is when you need to exercise staying power - choosing to keep at it, believing your actions are making a difference even when nothing you perceive with your five senses supports that belief.
This may be the stage in your process that you are most tempted to quit, don't. Persevere, you will make it to the other side of this slump.
“The difference between successful people and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.”
-Vince Lombardi Jr.
4. Celebrate Every Bit of Progress (Motivation)
No matter how small, actively look for reasons to celebrate and you will find many.
When you stick to a new habit, celebrate. When you don't default to an old one, celebrate. Failed and got back up? Celebrate. Quit and came back? Celebrate. And of course, get to the finish line? Have the mother of all celebrations.
Aren't you glad you persevered?
