Item #6 -- Getting a Handle On Persistence

Throughout this very brief series, we have examined what persistence is (and what it is not) and the things that affect your own persistence. In this, the final item of the series, we'll wrap up the discussion and see if we can lay out a plan whereby if you have no persistence, you can obtain it; if you have little persistence, you can improve it. And if you're a very persistent person, perhaps you can use the ideas to assist someone who could use the help.


Dealing With Criticism -- Redux

If I could leave you with a singular thought about this subject, it would have to be this: If you permit other people to influence your actions greatly, you permit them to live your life for you.  If you vacillate based on every statement of a critical nature, then you have varied, modified, or abandoned your life to the
control of someone else. Once you allow that to happen, you can become a powerless, unhappy, and perhaps even bitter individual.  That can lead to indifference and perhaps even resignation about your life. And certainly to failure in your business.

This does not mean that those who would criticize you don't have some element of truth if what they say. But in finding the germ of truth in their statements it becomes important to isolate their motivations, as well. Criticism begets fear and fear of what someone may think, say, or do can become so very destructive, destroying your ambition. If you had any persistence at all up to that time, the very fact that you are willing to accept negative criticism could lead you to the conclusion that you are unworthy, and nothing could be further from the truth. It
has been said that "God didn't make no junk!" Don't listen to it.  And tell the critic that you'll not permit him or her to bog down your life.

One of the tragedies of a young girl's life is that she works very hard, studies hard, performs well, surpasses expectations, and achieves success throughout her elementary school years. By the time she has advanced to middle school, however, often a serious change in her demeanor takes place. For reasons of either negative criticism or at least the fear of such criticism, it
becomes no longer "cool" to be smart. All those high goals she may have set in her preteen years have been battered about and
reshaped by her peers, by persons of opposite gender, and perhaps by even a natural laziness of the age somehow. They get swept aside in the quest to be "popular." I suspect young boys have a
lot to do with that, but even the young man who isn't well grounded in the handling of criticism suffers here. In both genders, the achievers get classified into various degrees of "nerdness." Did you see The Revenge of the Nerds? Bill Gates, call your service.

Somewhere along the way we hope that every young adult "wakes up," takes the world seriously, and begins a pathway to 
achievement. The audience reading this has arrived at that place in life. But parental programming, peer programming, and young
life experiences are often quite dominant in a person's psyche, long after the young years have passed. Too often, some of these
people refuse to set high goals for themselves because of that critical programming. Young people avoid selecting a career, often drifting through a few years of advanced training, casting about for a direction -- and all because they, or somebody around them, made an issue of restricted expectations.

Further, some simply accept the defaults that come their way -- PhD's flipping burgers come to mind. All to often, people get channeled into something that is not to their liking but which then becomes a trap they cannot escape -- loveless marriages
because of the kids, minimum wage employment because the family doesn't want them to move away -- lives with no future because of missed or avoided opportunities. And it's further sad, because our society has made failure an acceptable lifestyle -- and in many cases has been willing to subsidize it.

Let's say, for example, that I were to set a goal for you -- one that seems totally out of proportion to what you see for
yourself. For example, let's say that I think that the McConnell Club is a worthy goal, one requiring you to stretch, one
requiring you to work extraordinarily hard to achieve. What would be your first reaction? "Oh, yea, sure. Like I'm gonna be able to do that." Might you respond to the suggestion with concerns about what other people might say? Would you be able to quickly list the fears, criticisms, and affirmations that it would be impossible for you to do? Why? Read on.

All of a sudden you just became your own worst critic. Something inside of you says that getting to the McConnell Club is just too great a step for you to accomplish. What will your husband think if you made such an assertion for yourself? Would he confront you with a list of "concerns" over your responsibilities to the family, to your children, to your parents, to him -- and even perhaps those relative to some mutual endeavor? But you see, if you had such a reaction to my goal, you missed one critical element. Perhaps it was my intention that you do that in a ten year time span. That's not unreasonable. Some Avon ladies go through a career and never even make the President's Club. That
doesn't mean they've been a failure at it -- but it could mean that they were willing to listen to the influences that say "You
can be successful if you wish ... just don't be TOO successful.  It isn't COOL."

It's at this point where all ambition can die. It can be killed off not by the criticism itself, but by your willingness to be a receptor of that criticism. To quote Napoleon Hill, from whose book Think and Grow Rich I've developed several thoughts, "The fear of criticism is at the bottom of the destruction of most ideas
which never reach the planning and action stage."


Acquiring Self-Discipline.

There is, of course, a concept called "Constructive Criticism."  It is hoped that constructive criticism is a tender-hearted
attempt to keep you from embarrassing yourself somewhere along the way. You can become embarrassed and defensive when someone offers a substitute idea or word, if you wish, but if you do you have lost the opportunity for self-improvement at very little psychic cost. The reception of constructive criticism becomes your
willingness to adapt others' knowledge and experience to your own use, without having had to pay the price those others had to pay to acquire it. If you can adapt your thinking to become a sponge -- soaking up others' comments, accepting them at face value, applying them to your own life, you will be much further ahead than if you merely stumbled along in your own time, in your own matter. A good thought to maintain during the experience is the revelatory experience: SO THAT'S HOW IT WORKS!

The trick to the whole concept is to find a way to say "nay" to the naysayers, while accepting all those kernels of truth they
may offer -- and certainly taking to heart anything fully intended to help you to grow. Do you remember the words of your
parents who cautioned you about some of your peers and warned you to stay away from those who would be bad influences? It isn't any different now, except that you are the parent and you are talking to your inner child. We all have them. It takes the self-
discipline necessary to avoid the negative people who would cause you to not excel at this, your focus of interest. Stay clear of
them. Drop them off your social contacts. They do you no good.  And if your Avon peer becomes negative, give her a little
constructive criticism of your own, in love of course. You'll have enough difficulty keeping your own head above water. No need
to give anyone else the permission to help you to drown.

Persistence happens because we have tempered our resolve. We've decided what we can accomplish, made the plans, and taken the steps to see it done. There is a phrase in Yiddish that goes "Gonish Mit Gonish." Hopefully I've said that right. It means
nothing for nothing. Make no investment, receive no rewards. But investment brings on achievement and achievement brings reward.  The resolve that these goals are worthy and that YOU will see them accomplished creates the persistence to see it through.

And along the way, little will be given to you. You'll have to make your own breaks. You may be the one (out of the one million)
to hit the jackpot at the local casino. It happens. Depending on luck for your success, however, is misguided. It takes a break, true, but not a "lucky break." If luck is being at the right place at the right time, then you must make your own luck by venturing out, making calls, knocking on doors, handing out brochures, because sure as shootin' if you don't somebody else will get your break, because you won't be there. Breaks happen, then, because you have the knowledge and you apply it. Breaks happen because you insert yourself into situations from which you
cannot withdraw, giving you no choice other than to succeed or fail, and success is eminently more pleasant!


Steps to Developing Persistence.

It's summary time. To develop persistence, it's imperative to have a definite purpose, a burning desire, a specific plan, a
commitment to action, the suppression (or at least subjugation) of the negative influences in your life coupled with the
acceptance of those contributions that will benefit you from every friendly alliance you can muster: friends, books, tapes,
this series, whatever.

Doesn't mean it will be easy. There will be difficulties to be mastered. One way we've suggested is to get others on your team.
We called it the "Master Mind Trust." You'll have to revise your goals and plans, no doubt quite often. You'll have to accept the sweet things and take the difficult ones in stride. In fact, properly handled, a difficulty can become a driving force in your life. The blind mountain climber. An outstanding example of this lives right here in Tucson -- a young woman born without arms, forced to do everything with her feet, has just graduated with honors and is headed via scholarship to college. How do these examples compare to the difficulties you face?


The Charge To Persist.

It will be necessary for you to develop self-discipline, of course. But there are other spurs of persistence. You're reading
one now. There's a lot in print on things that can help you. And videos, and tapes. Get ahold of the Anthony Roberts success
series. You can rent it. FYI, it must be done in twelve consecutive days. You only will benefit from the experience.

Keep knowledge of the progress of your persistence. Savor the rewards that come about because you have been persistent. Put
that Albee out where you can see it. It becomes a very valuable motivator to your life and your business.


Ghost Busters.

I promised you a ghost story, and here it is. There are self-imposed critics, the ghosts that stand in the way of your
persistence and your success. Every one of those ghosts is a fear. We're all subject to them. Some of them are unavoidable. We
can't do much about the fear of death, except take steps to assure the hereafter. We can't do a lot about the fear of old age
-- at least the chronological age (we certainly are doing our best to remove the fear of the appearance of old age). Fear of
loss of loved ones is prevalent in our lives, and so we take steps to steel ourselves against the grief and seek the
commiseration of others in helping us to cope with it. We fear ill health, and as we get older, we fear infirmity and loss of freedom or independence. That's why some geriatrics so fiercely defend their driver's licenses. But two of our primary
fears are something we can actually do something about: fear of poverty and fear of criticism.

If success is a state of mind, so is fear. It's a ghost you can defeat. It need not haunt you forever. If you can spur yourself
towards success, you can suppress your fears. Every fear begins as a thought. Every thought not suppressed becomes an action (or lack of action) taken because of the thought. You can train yourself to perform these actions involuntarily, or it may well take some very specific voluntary actions to get to the point where taking the action becomes a natural outgrowth of your knowledge and your willingness to persist.

You have total control over only one thing -- what you think.  What you do with what you think will lead to your success or
failure. Failure happens instantly -- you don't have to work at it. Success, however, is incremental. You must work at it. You
must keep at it, against all odds, until you make that necessary breakthrough to whatever level your original thought can take you. Crank up your thoughts to where you KNOW, beyond the shadow of a doubt you couldn't possibly achieve that -- and then go do it.

See? I told you it was all in your head!

As you know, I like the "old time philosophers." In 1946 I was introduced to one in the Disney movie Snow White. His name was Jiminy Cricket, and what Jiminy said was this: "You gotta have
stick-to-itivity, if you've got that stuff ... stick-to-itivity.  You're gonna be all right."

I just haven't made up my mind what to be when I grow up.

Goodnight.