The Power Of Persistence

“The longer I live, the more I am certain, that the great difference between men, between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination — a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make one a man without it.”

— Fowell Buxton

Thomas Huxley was of the opinion that the first lesson which ought to be learned by the determined youth, “Is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.” He adds that, “However early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson which he learns thoroughly.”

Highly effective people are always pushing their potential. Will Smith tells us that he is always working to improve himself and is constantly crafting away at his skill. “When everybody is sleeping,” he says, “I’m working. When everybody is partying, I’m working, when everybody is eating, I’m working, nobody will outwork me.” The result of it has shown in his successful career as an actor and entertainer in Hollywood.

The principle is to keep at it, and to not be preoccupied with the time it will take to get there. Realize that the time will pass anyway, so might as well spend it chopping away at the block. If we keep at it we will see our progress in due time, and as we look up occasionally to wipe the sweat off our brow, we will marvel at the ground we have covered.

Big things are achieved step by step and action leads to growth — which leads to triumph.

If there is a large tree in our backyard that is impossible to take down in a single blow, chipping away at it day-in-day-out will surely produce the desired effect: Although it may take a week, or a month, but it is a matter of certainty that it will go down eventually.

So thus the athlete must keep training. The singer — keep singing, the writer — keep writing and the student keep studying. Achievement is done in the day-to-day grind amidst much uncertainty and often-times despair. Many of the greatest achievements of the world have been accomplished by tired and discouraged people who kept on working. Champions pressed on before anybody believed in them. Bestselling authors are simply amateurs who kept on working. Winning is crafted in the small unpleasant activities.

The pro-athlete who has reached the top of his game, will get to a point where he has nobody else to compete with but himself: “Although yesterday was the best I could do,” he says to himself, “today I will do even better.”

And just as the world steps aside for a determined individual, so does achievement give way to persistent effort.

“What obstacle can stay the mighty force of the sea-seeking river in its course?” asks Ella Wilcox:

“There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,” she declares. “That can circumvent, or hinder, or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; all things give way before it sooner or later… Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, whose slightest action or inaction serves the one great aim.”

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence,” wrote Calvin Coolidge. “Talent will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Goethe phrased it in this manner: “Austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails its purpose, for its solid power grows irresistibly greater over time.”

If we believe in ourselves, our ideas, our goals and our abilities, nothing becomes impossible — and impossible becomes nothing. Failure becomes our tutor and instructor. It becomes our greatest motivator.

When we want a thing bad enough, the obstacles that come our way will become minor inconveniences. Nothing will stop the determined individual, and like pushing a ball into a body of water, every water molecule will give way to it’s force sooner or later.

“It is hard to beat a person who never gives up, ” says Babe Ruth.

No Olympic champion was ever born great. They all had to work as hard— and even harder to become the best.

Step by step we climb the hill and before we know it, we will be we will look back and say, “Look how far we have come, just a little higher and a little further and we will be there.”

Read more in my new book! The Trials And Triumphs of Hyperachievers