While in pursuit of those big, hairy, audacious goals you have, you will more than likely run into opposition. That opposition can take on many forms. People, your physical environment, or even you yourself might stand in the way of you achieving what you want. Here’s the question: Can you press on in spite of those obstacles? You know there’s something great at the finish line but do you have what it takes to jump all those hurdles in between? That’s persistence. Once you understand how powerful persistence can be, those big goals will be less intimidating. I’ll give you two examples where persistence has been key to the particular successes mentioned.  I’ll start with the most recent.

broderickallen.com

This is my 3rd blog.  The first blog was You Got Dunked On.  I wanted to take the advice given by many bloggers to blog on what you’re passionate about or what you’re interested in.  I loved seeing people get dunked on, so I made a blog that primarily consisted of pictures and videos of different basketball players getting dunked on.  I ran into some problems with this though.  I couldn’t express any creativity seeing as the pictures and video were not my original content.  Looking back I wonder why I spent so much time advertising something that didn’t belong to me.  I knew the next blog I launched would be a blog that attracted readers based on what I wrote, so I started the Houston Rockets blog All Rockets All Day.  There was another problem with this blog.  It wasn’t too long before I realized that if I wanted to deliver quality content/commentary about Houston Rockets games I would either have to watch most of the games myself or hire writers to write for me.  I didn’t want to hire writers, and I knew down the line I would get bored to tears of writing about the Houston Rockets myself, so I stopped writing and blogging all together.  After I found the field of personal growth and development, the decision to start this blog was easy.  I learned so much through the first two blogs though, which I will share in another post down the line.

Piano

I’ve been playing piano since I was about 6 and I’m 21 now.  I stopped taking piano lessons when I went to college, but I still play often.

Piano lessons went VERY inefficiently.  I didn’t really like it when I first started, so I wouldn’t practice and I’d often repeat the same lessons from week to week.  This drove my mother nuts.  Looking back I don’t blame her for being frustrated.  During the time I was taking piano lessons, I can recall about 3-4 instances where I was actually serious about quitting.  Usually it was due to changing instructors or just being fed up with practicing all together.  Each time I thought about quitting my grandmother would step in and basically deny any opportunity to quit.  She kept contributing money to pay for the lessons, but I would still be stuck repeating the same lessons over and over.  Eventually, after weeks of drilling from my instructor, I would start to practice again and the lessons would progress as they were supposed to.  I often look back and think about what it would be like today if I had of quit during those extremely difficult times.  I probably would have the nagging “wish I had of…” in the back of my head.

Today I absolutely love listening to and playing piano.  The best part to me by far is creating, but if I didn’t have those tough and often boring piano lessons, it would be much harder to create the quality of music I create today.  I guess this would be an example of forced persistence, but nonetheless its allowed me to experience first hand the tremendous results persistence can bring and the satisfaction that comes with achieving any goal or desire that offers significant opposition.

Other Examples

There’s too many to even list!   The companies that manufactured the products you have in your house had to have persistence to get the product in your house.  Many people just don’t see the work that goes in to success because it’s behind the scenes.  Before making Rocky, Sylvester Stallone got rejected over 1500 times in different agents offices.  Are you ready to get rejected 1500 times for something you want?

When To Quit

I wouldn’t say to never quit.  The idea to never give up no matter what doesn’t make sense to me.  When I look back and see the good decisions I’ve made to let go of something, I’ve always let the end result be the determining factor.  Could it be possible that your beginning vision of success was inaccurate? Maybe after spending some time pursuing this goal, you realize it just wasn’t what you thought it was and you don’t want to keep pursuing it anymore.  If you know the path you’re on isn’t going to get you where you want to go, why stay the course? Why would you keep going down a highway that isn’t going to get you to your desired destination? I would just take the next exit.

In the first example I was persistent in finding a website that would fit me, but I wasn’t too persistent with each website as far as traffic, subscribers, monetization, etc. When I came to the point where I knew I wouldn’t like where the blog was going, I scrapped it and moved on.

If you’re chasing the big goals, you’re going to need persistence. There’s going to be times you’re not motivated to take action. It might be raining outside. You could have a headache. Everyone you know keeps telling you to quit. Well…

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn – Harriet Beecher Stowe

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