The road to achieving your long-term goals and objectives is not going to be easy. At first, you may be highly motivated and looking forward to the challenges you may face. However, as time passes by, you slowly start losing that bubbly enthusiasm for reaching your goals. You start allowing yourself to get distracted. You start missing deadlines you’ve set for yourself. You start procrastinating and getting lazy. And finally, you decide to jump ship and just abandon your quest for success thus making all your earlier efforts go to waste.
The Power Of Perseverance
In the face of numerous obstacles, challenges and temptations that we face on a daily basis, we sometimes get overwhelmed by it all. Sometimes it’s just easier to say “yes” than to say “no”. But remember that when we say “yes” to temptations and distractions, we say “no” to our goals. And if we say “no” to our goals far too often than is acceptable, then we’re ultimately failing ourselves.
Saying “no” is one of the most powerful words you can utter if you truly want to persevere and succeed. Saying “no” basically just means you won’t allow yourself to get distracted or to get tempted, from reaching your goals.
Standing firm and holding your ground is an important aspect of perseverance. Being stubborn can sometimes be a good thing. When it comes to going after your goals, the more stubborn and unrelenting you are, the better your chances of success. When you put your head down and start working on your goals, you block out all the noise and the shiny objects that may distract you.
Having grit means being tenacious. It means being focused 100% on your goal. You have your eyes set ahead into the future and you don’t pay attention to the noise that’s doing its best to detract you from your goals. When you have your eyes set on the prize, everything else falls into the background. Your self-discipline will guard your thoughts and won’t allow you to fall off the wagon and give in to temptation.
If you have the right mindset, that is, if you’ve already imprinted on your mind that you MUST achieve your goal at any cost, then over time doing all the tasks you need to do to achieve your goal becomes second nature to you. This is the kind of perseverance and self-discipline that will ultimately lead you to success.
Self-discipline acts as the bridge between your goals and accomplishments. When perseverance and self-control are further factored into this equation, you have the perfect recipe for success.
Staying Committed To Your Goal
To succeed in life, you must first have a solid plan in place. In article 1 of this eBook, I shared how important it is that you not only visualize your goal, you must also visualize the process of achieving your goal. Having a constant visible reminder of your goal is a very powerful motivator. With such a solid plan in place, it’s much easier to stay committed to your goal.
Now if you decide to just “wing” your goal and go with the flow, or whatever you think the quickest way to reaching your goals is, then you’re basically leaving your fate to luck. The word ‘commitment’ carries a lot of weight and shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you’re serious about staying committed to your goal, then you’re going to have to put a plan in place because winging it just won’t work. Most importantly, if you have self-discipline you will not leave your success to ‘luck’. Being disciplined will keep you on the straight and narrow and help you to stay committed to your goal.
Breaking down your goals into mini-goals is also important as it makes a herculean task seem so much easier. For example, if you’re thinking of buying up a $250,000 house within 2 years, then you can try to break down the amount you must save.
It’s much easier to say you’ll save $10,500 per month for 24 months than just saying you’ll ‘have that amount a week or so before your intended purchase date.’ What if you don’t raise that amount? What will happen to your goal? Based on this example, you can easily see that breaking down the amount you need to save per month is the right step in committing to the goal.
It’s also important to note the distinction between being committed and just being interested. Commitment means you’re willing to see something through to the end. In terms of reaching your goals, it means doing whatever it takes to reach your goals.
Interest, on the other hand, is just being intrigued by the thought of possibly achieving something. It’s like window shopping. You’re just looking through the glass and appreciating what you see inside but you’re not willing to commit and spend money on any of the stuff they’re selling inside.
If you truly want to succeed with your goals, then you’re going to have to be more than interested. You’re going to have to be a hundred percent committed and you’re going to do all it takes to succeed.
