爱华网Persistence by BobProctor
If you were tochoose just one part of your personality to develop that wouldvirtually guarantee your success, I'd like to suggest that youplace persistence at the top of your list.
Napoleon Hill, inhis classic Think and Grow Rich felt so strongly about thissubject, he devoted an entire chapter to it. Hill suggested, "Theremay be no heroic connotation to the word persistence but thequality is to your character what carbon is to steel."
Think about it. Ifyou took a quick mental walk down memory lane and reviewed some ofyour accomplishments in the past – large and small – you wouldhave to agree that persistence played an important role in yoursuccess.
Napoleon Hillstudied many of the world's most successful people. He pointed outthe only quality he could find in Henry Ford, Thomas Edison or ahost of other notable greats, that he could not find in everyoneelse was persistence. What I found even more intriguing was thefact that Hill made comment of the fact that these individuals wereoften misunderstood to be ruthless or cold-blooded and that thismisconception grew out of their habit of following through in allof their plans with persistence.
It's both interesting and sadly amusing to methat, as a society, we would be quick to criticize people forrealizing they had an unshakeable power within them and werecapable of overcoming any obstacle outside of them.This power would ultimately move themtoward a greater chance of achieving any goal they set forthemselves!
Milt Campbell is a good friend of mine. He and I have shared manyhours together discussing the very topic of persistence. Milt was aDecathlete in the Olympic Games held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952.His goal was to capture gold for the US. Unfortunately, anotherfierce competitor who had taken home the gold four years previousin London wasn't satisfied with one gold, Bob Mathias wanted two;Milt had to settle for silver. That did not deter Milt one bit. Hehad formed the habit of persistence and four years later inMelbourne, Australia, Milt won the gold medal, earning him thetitle of the greatest athlete in the world.
On numerousoccasions Milt has said, "There were many guys in school who werefar better athletes than me, but they quit." I can recount storyafter story about individuals who overcame obstacles so great, butonly did so because they dared persist. These individuals are nodifferent than you and I.
Ultimately persistence becomes a way of life, butthat is not where it begins. To develop the mental strength –persistence - you must first want something. You have to WANTsomething so much that it becomes a heated desire... a passion inyour belly. You must fall in love with that idea. Yes, literallyfall in love with the idea and magnetize yourself to every part ofthe idea. At that point, persistence will be virtually automatic.
Persistence is a subject I have studied all of myadult life and I can tell you one thing I know for certain: veryfew people ever, mentally or verbally, say to themselves... this iswhat I really want and I am prepared to give my life for it, andthus, they never develop the persistence to achieveit.
Persistence is aunique mental strength; a strength that is essential to combat thefierce power of the repeated rejections and numerous otherobstacles that sit in waiting and are all part of winning in afast-moving, ever-changing world. As Napoleon Hill found out, thereare hundreds of highly successful men and women who have cut a pathfor others to follow, while leaving their mark on the scrolls ofhistory… and every one of these great individuals was persistent.In many cases it was the only quality that separated them fromeveryone else.
It is generallybelieved that a lack of persistence is a consequence of a weakwillpower. That is not true. A person could have a highly evolvedwillpower and still lack the persistence required to keep movingforward in life. In more cases than not, if a person lackspersistence, they do not have a goal that is worthy of them, adesirable goal that excites them to their very core.
Though willpower is important in moving aperson toward their goal, if there is ever a war between the willand the imagination, the imagination will win every time.What that means is: you're powered by desire and fuelled by thedream you hold. Once you start to use your imagination to help youbuild a bigger picture of your dream, to define and refine it untilyou get it just right in your mind, the emotion that is triggeredby that desire far outweighs any force that may be caused by sheerwill alone. I am not suggesting the will does not have to bedeveloped, it does. It must become highly developed in order todirect you toward the image with which you are emotionallyinvolved.
Your intellectualfactors hold the potential for enormous good when they are properlyemployed. However, you must remember that everything has anopposite and any of your intellectual factors can turn, withoutwarning, into destructive lethal enemies when they are directedtoward results that are not wanted. It is easy to find individualswho are persistently doing what they don't want to do and achievingresults that they do not want. A lack of persistence is not theirproblem; that person is persisting to their own detriment.Ignorance and paradigms are the enemy that we must defeat. Everyoneis persistent. Our objective must be to put persistence to work forus rather than against us.
Vision and desire have to be the focus of yourattention if you're going to develop persistence into the greatally it can become.
Another excellentexample of persistence was demonstrated when, in 1953, a beekeeperfrom Auckland, N.Z., Edmund Hillary and his native guide, TenzingNorguay, became the first two people to climb Mt. Everest andreturn, after having tried and failed the two previousyears.
Hillary had twoobvious character strengths that took him to the very top —-vision and desire. Even despite the seemingly insurmountablechallenges, he had no trouble persisting with the strenuous actsthat were required because every act was hooked into the image ofhim standing on top of the mountain. They were expressed because ofhis persistence, but he was persistent because he was emotionallyinvolved with the image. Without persistence, all his skills wouldhave meant nothing.
Persistence is an expression of themental strength that is essential in almost every profession, whererepeated rejection and obstacles are part of a dailyroutine.
In closing, let megive you four relatively simple steps that will help you to turnpersistence into a habit. These steps can be followed by virtuallyanyone.
1. Have a clearly defined goal.The goal must be something you are emotionally involved with,something you want very much. (In the beginning, you may not evenbelieve that you can accomplish it—the belief willcome.)
2. Have a clearly established plan thatyou can begin working on immediately. (Your plan will verylikely only cover the first and possibly the second stage of thejourney to your goal. As you begin executing your plan, other stepsrequired to complete your journey will be revealed at the righttime.)
3. Make an irrevocable decision to rejectany and all negative suggestions that come from friends, relativesor neighbors. Do not give any conscious attention toconditions or circumstances that appear to indicate the goal cannotbe accomplished.
4.Establish a mastermind group of one or more people who willencourage, support and assist you whereverpossible.
What do you dreamof doing with your life? Do it. Begin right now and never quit.There is greatness in you. Let it out. Be persistent.
BobProctor
