Build Your Perseverance Muscle!
Perseverance is a unique characteristic. There is no downside to having “too much” perseverance. Other positive traits can become flaws if they get out of control, but such is not the case with perseverance. In fact, it seems to be a skill that only gets better with age.
People who have a lot of perseverance stand strong in the face of adversity. And the more a person has, the stronger they stand.
People with perseverance demonstrate courage, resilience, and excellence in very specific ways. A person with perseverance usually has a goal they care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to almost everything they do.
People who are highly-successful are known for working long hours and really focusing their energy and time only on tasks that further that key goal.
Some tips to build your perseverance:
- Deliver 200%. Find the hardest working member on your team (if it’s not already you) and work harder than them. Be better. Work twice as hard as everyone else.
- Screw up a lot. Try things, fail hard, and get up and try again. The more you keep getting up, the stronger your perseverance muscle will become.
- Press on. Make all the tough decisions. No one likes to do the difficult things, make the difficult choices. Budget cuts, letting people go, hell it could be the color of the paint you use for the office walls. There are some decisions that people run from. Decisions other people don’t want to make. That’s why it has to be you. Make the tough decisions when others are running away.
- Shut down all doubt and negativity. Trust your intuition. This is about mental toughness, and confidence. There is already so much negativity in the world; you need to shut it out of your head. Out of your life if you can, but let’s start with the space between your ears. You need to “quiet the haters in your head.”
- Delay gratification. Trust the process. Take no shortcuts. Yeah, that.
- Over-deliver on your word. Yeah, that, too.
Perseverance is important because it pushes you to be better.
In our business, perseverance keeps us on the phone through the “winters” when the deals aren’t coming in. Perseverance keeps us following up. It keeps us hungry to find new ways to add value for our clients.
Stay strong. Persevere. I wish you the best of luck.
