Effectivity

How to Keep Going When a Sane Person Would Stop

When you finish at your dance class, every one heads home except that one crazy lady who keeps on practicing well into the night.  She is a bit like the guy who keeps swimming lap after lap even as the pool attendant has turned off the lights and is coiling up the lane ropes.  They just keep on stubbornly, doggedly, persistently pursuing their goals.  Day in and day out, they keep inching towards success and they care very little if everyone else has given up.  These people are insane…but effective.

Persistence is crucial if we want to achieve things that other people are not able to.  Sometimes hanging in there, is all that separates achievers from the rest.  But how can we develop the habit of keeping going when everyone else has given up?

Here are a few pointers to set you on the right path to persistence.  However, you must realise that developing persistence will probably take a lifetime and not many people have it in them to go that far. 

• Firstly you must choose the right goals to motivate your persistence.  Why would you persist in a goal that was not directly linked to your concept of yourself.  You have to latch onto a goal that is so personally important to you that the thought of leaving it behind would be unthinkable.  There is no time to talk more about this here, except to say that earning money is never a goal that is powerful enough.  There is always something more important to you and until you find it you won’t be able to fully experience persistence.
• You have to carefully define this valuable goal so that you will know when you are getting closer.  The crazy person who persists beyond what is reasonable may actually be closer to his goals than you think because only he knows how his goals are defined.
• You must develop systems to measure your progress.  Even intangible results such as depth of insight or mastery of technique can be measured if you take enough time over it.  You must form a way of gauging your own performance so that you will stay motivated to pursue what is working and refine what is not.  Persistence is promoted by knowing that you are progressing no matter how incrementally.
• You must develop the habit of keeping your goal in front of you at all times.  It is no good, pulling out your goal once a month and seeing how you went.  Your goal has to remain in front of your consciousness or it will quickly become a wish and soon after, it will become a regret or will be forgotten all together.  The crazy persistent person, who steadily progresses to her goals, has developed a way to hold her goal in front of her at all times.  For her it has become a map and compass combined.   A guide book and a  trophy to all of her progress so far.
• You have to avoid being distracted by shiny new goals that promise so much.  When you are in times of slow incremental progress it is tempting to lift your head and look around to see if there are any new exciting goals to hitch a ride on.  Carefully consider if these new goals are going to help you achieve your current goals, are they complementary?  Otherwise they may well just distract your attention and take the edge off your momentum.  Some goals are complementary and some are conflicting.  The persistent person will stay committed to their current goal and only take on another if there is a complementary relationship.  This is my personal weakness.  I live in a world of endless opportunities and each goal seems more exciting than the last.  When I have made leaps and bounds towards a goal, the progress inevitably slows to a more sustainable pace and then I am tempted to take on other projects too fast and too soon.  This has the potential to dilute my persistence and reduce my overall effectiveness in achieving what is important.  So I struggle to stay focused on my primary goals and only take on other goals if complement them.  But oh how shiny and golden a new goal seems at times!
• If for no other sane reason, sometimes we have to persist simply because it is good for us.  Persistence is a skill and an art which builds up our sense of capability.  We realise our power and potential if we are able to patiently pursue our goals even when we have lost all other motivation.  If you cannot remember any other reason to keep on going, then keep striving simply because you will be the better for it.  This is not an excuse for mindless, stuck in a rut, behaviour.  It is quite the opposite.  Pursue your goals with every thing you have and keep pursuing them even when you can’t remember why you started.  Sooner or later, clarity will return and you will be that much closer to success.

To remain effectively committed to our goals sometimes we will appear insane.  We will have to persist well after more conventional and sensible people will have given up.  Only you know how important your goals are and so only you know exactly how far you will pursue them.  So it is up to you to make sure that you persist, persist and keep on persisting , because persistence will be the determining factor in whether or not you achieve your goals.

Where can you benefit by a little insane persistence?  What will you have to change to activate this persistence?

Thanks

Tom