Let’s talk about the power of persistence.
At plenty of points in my life, I’ve come up against repeated discouragement. Times when it felt like my projects weren’t going where I wanted, and it felt like I was getting punched in the stomach every time I got up and tried again.
In those moments, I really questioned my projects, whether I wanted to continue with them, and whether I should have even started them in the first place.
It’s very painful when this happens, but on the flipside, those moments are when I’ve learned most about success, persistence and failure.
And after these experiences and reading about success and learning, I’ve come to realise that persistence is the key factor in success.
Consider this a comprehensive, hands-on guide to the power of persistence, packed with my best hard-won lessons into how it works and how to develop it.
Let’s jump right in with a harsh truth.
The Bigger The Goal, The More Persistence Required
We tend to naively think that passion precludes struggle, pain and hard work.
But one thing I’ve learned on my travels is that grand, significant goals entail more pain than piddly ones do.
This might sound horrible and negative, but think of it like this: most projects are inherently difficult and challenging. Now, when you’re pursuing a particularly desirable goal, it’s because it means a lot to you. You really want to succeed.
This means that when you hit a block or setback, inevitably it will hurt more than usual, causing you to feel more tempted to give up. As you’re working towards your goal, you’ll actually experience more pain than normal. This means you require more persistence to achieve it, not less.
On the other hand, remember that no matter how difficult things may become in the short term, you can always trust in the power of persistence long term.
The Power of Persistence: It’s The Key
A key lesson I’ve learned over the years is that persistence really is the key to success. Without persistence, you’ll eventually be overcome by an obstacle on your path. With persistence, no obstacle is too great.
For example, it’s not really about your method. That is, unless you’re doing something ridiculously wrong.
Let’s imagine you’re learning the guitar, but for some reason you’re trying to play it with the palm of your hand instead of your fingers. Why you’re doing it like this, I don’t know.
You might come up with something new this way, but most likely you’re just never going to learn, because you’re physically doing it wrong.
Or, for example, if you’re trying to learn Spanish, but your verbs are wrong every time you talk, or the tenses are mixed up, or the endings are wrong. If you do that for years and years, you’re never going to get good because you’re simply repeating the wrong things.
So we can certainly use a wrong method, but that has never stopped me from getting good at something.
Instead, I’ve found that what stops us reaching our goals is mostly lack of persistence. We have the method, we have the technique, we have the information we need to understand how the thing works, and for a while we even invest the required time and effort.
It’s simply that we’re incapable of continuing when we reach those inevitable blocks (AKA threshold guardians). Eventually, we can’t take it anymore and we conclude: “No, this isn’t for me, this isn’t who I am, I’m obviously not just not cut out for this.”
And because lack of persistence is a self-fulfilling prophecy, your flawed and disempowering belief is actually proved right!
So that you can begin to trust deeply in the power of persistence, it’s useful to know how persistence works.
The Power of Persistence: What Persistence Does
Let’s look at some metaphors for how persistence works.
On one hand, it’s like trying to tumble a wall with a hammer. If you’ve ever tried this, you’ll realise the first few times, no matter how hard you hit, the wall tends to remain unmoved. All your effort and action is in vain.
But continue hitting, and after a dozen, 20 or 30 times, eventually it starts to crumble. Once it has started to fall, you hardly need to try to destroy what remains: it completely falls apart. Once you overcome the initial resistance, you’re guaranteed to succeed.
Persistence works the same way. It slowly wears down the barriers between you and your objective. To begin with, you make very little progress. But once you reach a certain point, you become irresistible, and in no time you realise you’ve achieved your goal, and more.
Another metaphor is the way that water wears down a rock: it imperceptibly rubs and shapes the seemingly unyielding substance of the rock. Progress only becomes noticeable over the span of months and years, yet it’s also inevitable: water is destined to wear down rock if given enough time.
It’s foolproof: if you just persist for long enough with the right method, learning from all your failures, adjusting and then moving forward, eventually you push through. I’ve found that on the other side of persistence you always find something beautiful.
It’s a question of time, effort and patience, and with those major, meaningful, life-changing goals, you must be ultra persistent.
The Yin and Yang of Goals
Let’s look at another metaphor that will help you understand the power of persistence.
It’s crucial you know that when we aim for major goals, our emotions behave like a seesaw. The greater the goal, the larger the sees and saws.
You see, if you’re not aiming for very much, you’re going to experience some passion and some struggle, but overall the experience will be relatively smooth. Not too high, not too low.
But if you aim high, expect to experience a proportional amount of pain as you work towards that lofty goal.
Sure, the more important and lofty a goal is, the greater the reward. But equally, the greater the struggle and pain you’ll have to experience to reach it.
Life is a balance: it’s yin and yang. While the goal is positive, lofty and inspiring, the struggle is the negative, the shadow, the opposite, the balancing force.
This means that to achieve something we have to invest a proportional amount of effort and struggle. That said, the result is always equally as beautiful as the obstacles are tough.
Think of the struggle as a challenge life puts to you, as though saying: “So, you want this, but do you really want this? Do you really want this? Do you really want this? Do you really want this?” It’s going to ask you again, and again, and again.
This is what makes life real. If life were just a sandbox game where you could use a cheat code, get all the money in the game, and then build a village, an army, an empire, and so on, it simply wouldn’t be the same.
What’s rare is valuable: if everyone could achieve something easily, it’d be a cheap, common commodity, so we wouldn’t value it.
I’ve been through this sort of journey many times: with maths, guitar, meditation, Chinese, Spanish, and so on. And I’ve definitely found that the more it means, the harder it is. But equally, there is the light, there is the beauty in the process and the goal.
Learn from times in my life when I’ve had to persist against all the odds.
A recent time was when I moved to Spain. I’ve noticed that my persistence and resilience muscle has grown stronger since then. [It did help that when I arrived I found some excellent café in El Escorial.]
Anyways, Let’s look at a couple of parting tips that will help you tap into the power of persistence.
Tip 1: Don’t Take Your Goals For Granted
When it comes to goals, you must appreciate their size and significance. And realise that you’re going to need a proportional amount of persistence to get there: the greater and more significant the goal, the more persistence you need.
We tend to take our goals for granted, getting carried away by our excitement and drive and ignoring the amount of effort required to reach them. In this way, we’re often unrealistic and live in fantasy land.
At the same time, we don’t respect them. You must realise the significance of the goal and give it the requisite respect. The more significant it is for your life, the more persistence you’ll need.
What does giving it respect look like? It means having a long-term view of things and not getting overly caught up in the little details.
It means zooming out on your life, thinking ahead 5, 10, 15, 20 years, or even more, and asking, “what impact is this project going to have on my life?” This allows you to look beyond your present obstacles and trust that things will work out, so long as you’re persistent.
Tip 2: Don’t Idealise It
I’ve also learned that to others the achievement of a goal seems, pretty, marvellous, special and magical.
For example, if you see a professional guitarist playing, you’ll tend to idealise them. They have the aura of mastery; there’s a flow and naturalness to their playing.
But though guitar mastery is sexy, the process of reaching it is mostly dull. As Dan Chambliss found, excellence is mundane. I promise you that the guitar master has played their instrument wrong way more times than they’ve played it right.
They’ve been immersed in it for years. They’ve done things wrong so many times that eventually they have penetrated to the essence of it. Their body and their fingers have become so used to the guitar that they just know how to play it. This isn’t because they’re magical, but because they’ve simply done it enough times to know how to play it and to avoid all the traps involved.
That’s really what success is: it’s being so immersed for so long, and trying and failing so much, that eventually you have to be good. You’ve been trying for so long that eventually your nervous system, your body, your brain – your entire being – adapt. From then on, you feel naturalness, spontaneity, freedom and self-expression.
Remind yourself of this: the final result isn’t as sexy as it seems, and the process involved isn’t about talent, or luck, or natural inclination, or even enjoyment: it’s really all about persistence.
To round off this article, I want to leave you with some of my favourite quotes on the power of persistence.
Quotes on the Power of Persistence
There is no substitute for persistence. It cannot be supplanted by any other quality! Remember this, and it will hearten you, in the beginning, when the going may seem difficult and slow.
There is a hidden Guide whose duty is to test men through all sorts of discouraging experiences… the hidden Guide lets no one enjoy great achievement without passing the persistence test. Those who can’t take it, simply do not make the grade.
What we do not see, what most of us never suspect of existing, is the silent but irresistible power which comes to the rescue of those who fight on in the face of discouragement.
If one does not possess persistence, one does not achieve noteworthy success in any calling.
Broadway will give any beggar a cup of coffee and a sandwich, but it demands persistence of those who go after the big stakes.
Napoleon hill
When we first begin fighting for our dreams, we have no experience and make many mistakes. The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and get up eight times.
The miner was about to give it all up, right at the point when, if he were to examine just one more stone – just one more – he would find his emerald.
Imagine if everyone went about transforming lead into gold. Gold would lose its value… It’s only those who are persistent, and willing to study things deeply, who achieve the master work.
before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way… That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.’
paulo coelho
What you must understand is the following: almost nothing in the world can resist persistent human energy. Things will yield if we strike enough blows with enough force.
The trick is to want something badly enough that nothing will stop you or dull your energy… Drop the background doubts and continue striking with full force, knowing that you can break through anything if you don’t let up.
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