Never Give Up
As advanced as we are, humans still need to build good habits and let go of the bad ones. Persistence is a habit which like a muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In the animal kingdom, persistence comes naturally.
One only has to think of the honey badger, to see persistence in constant action. This small animal is fearless. It will fight a lion and not back down. When it comes to food, the honey badger has no equal. It will eat anything including venomous snakes. Honey badgers are basically immune to snake venom but they sometimes do get such a dose, that it knocks them out for a few minutes. Once they awaken, it is off to find another snake. They will dig right into a honeybee nest and take on the angry bees to get their honey fix. When it comes to food and fighting, the honey badger gets an A+ in persistence.
The persistence drive in humans has declined over the years. People will find a multitude of reasons to quit any endeavor the moment it gets difficult. They want success but are unwilling to put in the work and stick to a game plan.
There are a number of factors that can be considered, when trying to understand the “it will just be easier to quit,” attitude. As children are raised in a hectic world today, some parents find that they would rather allow their children to give up on certain things, rather than be patient and persistent in teaching them how to win at life. Once a child sees that being aggressively resistant towards a task, allows them the chance to do something more pleasurable, they will build upon thatA.
As adults of any age will find, the ability to focus on a goal or plan can be difficult. This is due to the high pace world we now live in. Giving up is starting to become the normal thing to do, once a roadblock appears. For most people it far easier to say, “This is too hard, this is too stressful, I cannot do it.” Once they convince themselves that giving up is the way to go, it now becomes the easy way out for anything they do in life. When a relationship becomes difficult, they have already built a neural pathway in their brain…that is the highway to giving up without much of a fight. Everything we do, creates neural pathways and we strengthen those pathways with repetition.
Look around you. When you see successful people, are they smartest people in the room? Frequently the answer is no. Smart people can get frustrated and give up, just like anyone else. If you really dig deep and even ask some questions, you find the successful people are the ones with the biggest persistence muscle. They were either born with or learned the ability of going forward no matter what life throws at them. In this eBook, the aim is to teach you how to be extremely persistent, while being patient at the same time. Your ultimate growth will come from this.
The goal of this eBook, is to give you a new way of thinking. We will show you how to break the negative pathways in your brain and build new strong positive pathways. In addition, we will cover why it is so important for your success in life, to full understand and implement the idea of having a powerful, never give up no matter what attitude. Following this eBook will greatly improve your chances of having a very successful life.
Silencing the Negative Voice in Your Head
Everyone has the same super computer available. Your brain is a marvelous bit of engineering and capable of tremendous amounts of data processing. Your stored memories are all there. Sometimes they are easy to access and at other times, it takes some work to open certain file drawers in your brain.
Not all the memories are good of course. The science of NLP which stands for neuro-linguistic programming can help with changing what a memory means to you. It is certainly an area of study that you should consider. To start your pathway to a better use of your personal super computer, let’s talk about “how you talk to yourself.”
This is extremely important when it comes to having a positive mental image of yourself. When a person says that they cannot do something, often an image of failure accompanies that statement.
They have stacked experiences of giving up, when the going got hard. In addition, they have added tags, just like the ones people use in social media.
For example, you may have mental tags like these:
#toohard
#failure
#painful
#giveup
#neverwin
The list for some people could be very long. It wasn’t always that way. As children, we thought we could do anything, including fly. Years of negative conditioning, from family, friends, school and eventually ourselves…led us to the conclusion that sometimes it was just easier to give up.
When we hit our teenage years, this really kicked into overdrive and eventually the negative self-talk outweighs the positive things we say internally and occasionally out loud with conviction.
The negative self-talk has multiple consequences and must be dealt with. If you know people who suffer from lack of self-esteem, poor self-confidence and depression, then you are likely looking at someone who replays negatives conversations in their head daily.
They use poor word choices like, “I can’t, I should have, and I could have been or done this.”
Repetitive negative self-talk, layers itself in the brain and one could compare it to a physical thing like artery plaque in the heart region. Both are dangerous and should be taken care of immediately.
In order to build your never give up attitude, you will need to change how you talk to yourself. When you do this, you will not only be unstoppable, but all the negative issues discussed, will start to dissolve. You will feel amazing and have superior confidence in all that you do.
Finally those black clouds of depression will lift.
A word of caution here, if your depression is a chemical imbalance, then you need to see professional advice.
You can start your can do attitude, by eliminating negative words from your vocabulary and replace them with positive sayings. Start by making a list of negative words you are aware float around in your head like garbage in the ocean. Both need to be cleaned up, or there will be severe consequences. Now draw a line through each negative word and write down a positive word beside it. This will be your new “go to” word.
Understand and accept that getting help is a good thing. Many people feel weak when seeking assistance. However going to groups that discuss positivity and success, can be very helpful for you. You will meet new people who are on the same journey. They too have decided that persistence and never ever, give up…is the way they want to lead their lives.
Listening to, or reading self-help books is something everyone should be doing and quite frankly, this should be taught in elementary schools and upwards. Using your car as a university is something motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar preached about all his life. He believed listening to the car radio was a time waster and that we should feed our minds with positive words daily. Drive to work and listen to Zig or another master of motivation, Les Brown. In 30 days, you will see a massive difference in the way you think.
For our purposes today, there is a recommended reading.
Dr. Shad Helmstetter wrote an outstanding book entitled, “What to say when you talk to yourself.” In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Helmstetter gives you a new way to think about and talk to yourself. Here is an example of a phrase that if you repeated every night before bed, would have a significant effect on your overall self-esteem.
“I know that what I believe about myself, is what I will become. So I believe in the best for myself.”
Here is how you stop tossing and turning while replaying negative conversations in your mind. Memorize, the phrase Dr. Helmstetter has put together and repeat it over and over until you drift off to sleep. When your mind tries to go back to negativity, tell it to stop and then continue to repeat the phrase. When you believe in the best for yourself, then you will go for it and quitting will not be an option.
To get the most out of the book, pick 5 to10 phrases that resonate with you. When you read those phrases, you get goosebumps or feel a little rush of adrenaline. Write those phrases out on index cards and then put them all around your house.
If you have a family, get them involved. Have 2-3 of these index cards taped to your fridge and tell your kids, before they can open the fridge, they must say each phrase once as if it is a magic key. Put one in your bedroom that you can read while getting dressed in the morning. Don’t forget where you spent a lot of alone time. Yes, the bathroom is a perfect place to put an index card. Read the index card over and over, instead of looking at the drama on your Facebook feed.
You should be getting really excited now. To get the most out of this eBook, you should read it more than once and put yourself into massive action. Let’s move into pain vs pleasure and how it drives your life.
How We Equate “Going For It” as Pain
It’s been said that people will do anything to avoid pain and will seek pleasure, even if they know in the long run, life is going to get more painful. Pain avoidance is something many people excel at. An example would be someone who believes they have a novel inside them. The idea keeps cropping up and begging to be written.
As person starts and stops the writing process, they give way to negative self-talk and then look for a comfort. That comfort might be laying on the couch and watching television all day because they have mentally told themselves,”Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better and I will really go for it. Maybe write 5K to 10K…just hammer it out.”
Tomorrow arrives and the thought of sitting in a chair seems to be painful, so they decide to get ready by having a nice hot coffee. Once the coffee is done, well there is a game show on, so better watch that and have a few laughs.
The procrastination they are doing is out of a belief that writing is going to be hard, really hard and they have to be 100% prepared. But they convince themselves they aren’t today, so perhaps they should go have a hamburger and fries. Substituting what they believe is pleasure-a hamburger and fries vs writing, is sadly the route the vast majority of people take.
We all love pleasure of any kind. It makes us feel good and drives away any sadness, even if only temporarily. With the advertising and the internet, people are even more persuaded to seek pleasure only. They see the successful people and believe there was no pain for those people to get where they are today. Their minds are filled with the best houses, the best cars and vacations to sunny beaches.
This is one reason why lotto tickets sales are in the billions. Many people convince themselves that they will win the lotto and then all their dreams come true. The opposite usually happens after a huge lotto win. In a short time the money is gone and perhaps even the people they loved, have disappeared.
A recent study showed that a notable amount of people were counting on a huge lotto win to fund their retirement. Instead of putting in the extra work and investing wisely, these people choose to play the lotto multiple times per week.
How do we stop this pain vs pleasure debate? The key thing is to re-label what pain is.
There is physical pain and mental pain.
When someone is in chronic pain, they tend to dwell on it and experience a great deal of depression. Learning to re-label physical pain, helps to cope with it. When a person understands that pain means they are still alive, with the opportunity to go for it and succeed, then it is possible for them to excel.
When you have a chronic disease and zero pain, it is likely because you have passed from this world.
Pain tells us we are alive.
There are many extreme sports fanatics that have learned to re-label pain and make it pleasure. There are mountain climbers with no legs and arms that convince themselves to scale some tough mountains. As the pain sets in, they equate it to pleasure because they are alive and headed to the top of the world, physically and mentally.
Mental pain needs to be re-labeled as well, in order to really develop the “no quit,” attitude.
There are different types of mental pain associated with dropping procrastination and instead have a persistent drive.
Here are the steps to take when you start to feel mental pain.
Step 1
Take a few calm moments to think about what is going on inside your head. Take deep even breaths and relax all your muscles. Now ask yourself what emotions you are feeling in that moment.
Step 2
Once you know the emotion, write it down on a piece of paper. Then see it as it is, a negative thought that disrupts you. Now pick a word that can replace the negative with a positive. Here are some examples. When you mentally say to yourself, “I fear doing this because……” replace with, “I’m feeling some anticipation right now and that means things are going to get good.”
When you say to yourself, “I feel pressure to do this,” replace it with, “I’ve got a task and I can chunk it, which makes it very doable.”
Every emotion you feel, you have control over. Instead of allowing negative thoughts about doing something because it takes you out of your comfort zone or you would rather doing some very pleasurable instead…you can change it.
Make your word choices turn pain into the pleasure of going for it and being everything you ever wanted to be. The massive pleasure that you get at the end, is worth the effort of changing your task from a pain one to an inspiring thought of pleasure.
Another method to change from pain to pleasure, is breaking the habitual loop of pain memories in your brain. When you want to develop a “go for it,” attitude, you may be blocked if you have a number of memories you replay, that are focused on the number of times you quit.
Think of those memories as flash drives. Each flash drives has the time you quit school, quit three jobs in a row or constantly gave up on relationships the minute it got rough. Sit back and visualize that flashdrive and when you can picture it, mentally throw it into the air and blast it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Immediately think of a memory when you had something to do and you went for it 100% and remember exactly how you felt at that moment. Think of all the pleasure you got from yourself and those around you, who congratulated you on the massive success. If you have difficulty thinking of that one time, then think of something you wanted to succeed at and act as if it happened.
Your brain is not able to tell the difference from a real event or one that you imagined.
If you find that hard to believe, then think of the times you put yourself into a deep state of fear, when you heard a noise. It may have just been a creaky board in a house but suddenly you were able to transform that noise into a killer with a knife. Remember how you got goosebumps and chills? That is you, creating a scene that your brain is believing to be true.
The big key to changing the negative CD in your head, is finding a technique that works for you. Experiment with this. If blasting the CD with a shotgun is not working, try dissolving the CD in a big vat of acid. Work on this until you find an image that helps you erase the CD and the memories it hold…permanently.
When you practice the blasting apart or erasing of old negative hurts, it will lead to that thought having little or no power over you. That means you are free to replace the thought with one that is positive and gives you pleasure.
Enjoying the Pleasure of the Journey to a Persistent Attitude
One of the biggest obstacles to having a persistent attitude, is believing everything should be easy. We constantly hear or read stories about people who have had massive success, however the reporting is slanted to only show the rewards of success. Frequently news reports leave out all the bumps in the road that sprang up in front of that successful person. This is turn, leads to a wrongful assumption in most people’s mind. They begin to believe success is easy and when it eludes them, it means they are not worthy and should not try anymore.
To be persistence and achieve success, you must change what your beliefs are. When you read a biography of a successful person, take note of what obstacles they faced and how they broke them down with a never quit attitude.
Just for a moment, sit back and think about this. How would life be if everything was extremely simple and you didn’t have to do anything to see success? If you really are sincere in your thoughts, you will realize that life would actually be very boring. Setting and achieving goals gives us huge pleasure but only if we had to knock down some hurdles to get there.
Obstacles make you stronger and add much pleasure to the end result. You look back and see how you smashed through those roadblocks… nothing could hold you back. Now you feel intense pleasure and are ready for a new challenge. To make your journey more pleasurable, let’s go over some ways to get the real juice out of life.
One man who excels in persistence, is former navy seal, David Goggins. His life story is incredible and worth reading about. Later in his navy seal life, he started training the people who were trying to enter the seal program and found that they were for the most part, big and tough…everywhere except between the ears. He resolved to change that and to make better participants for seal training.
What he learned to believe, is your need to grow your mental toughness. When you do this, it won’t be easy but you can take pleasure in a type of growth you may never experienced before. We all grow up and some of us exercise and do sports which helps our muscles grow. It is not easy but the rewards feel good. Mental toughness is no different.
Here is how you can start building your mental toughness today.
1. Read the book, “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway,” by Susan Jeffers.
2. From that book, you will learn to do something uncomfortable everyday and do it, because it won’t kill you.
3. Some ideas are making 2-3 calls a day, if you are uncomfortable calling people, especially for work purposes, Susan gives you many ideas. Here is one you can try today. Go to a coffee shop and talk to everyone within three feet of you, if meeting new people makes you uncomfortable. You don’t even have to sell them anything, just get used to approaching people in a friendly manner.
Now that you have the idea, make a list of things that make you uncomfortable and do each one until you are fully comfortable. Be patient and do a chunk a day. Don’t try to pick up the phone and call 20 people to make an appointment, if cold calling terrifies you. Bit by bit, your mental toughness will strengthen, and you will be able to do thinks that you would have quit on before.
It also helps to give yourself a tiny reward each time you do an uncomfortable task. Make your 3 calls, have a cappuccino and listen to 15 minutes of your favorite band. These little rewards of pleasure, are enough to get your brain onboard with change. Don’t think that is difficult. You are not G. Gordon Liddy, who as a young boy, wanted to prove to himself that he was fearless. His idea? Find a rat, roast it and eat it and nothing else could possibly stop him in anything he wanted to do.
Think about something you have always wanted to do, but never started or did give it a shot but quickly gave up. The aim here is not to dwell on the failure, just to get a new starting point. For anything you want, you need to have an intense reason why. Just wanting to get a black belt in taekwondo because it is something that John at work did, or you love martial arts movies…is definitely a recipe for quitting before the end. No matter what it is you want to accomplish, think about it and write it down. Then list 5 reasons why you want to do this. Each reason should move you to the point, that just thinking about it gets you excited.
Next up, decide how long it will take to get that black belt, write that novella or get the supervisors job you have always dreamed of. Yes, there are steps to getting promotions. You need to really look into that, because it rarely happens just because you have a pleasing personality.
For our example, let’s look at writing a novella. Writing a novella or any size book for Amazon Kindle is very popular. However, if you are thinking of doing it just for the money, it is not likely going to work. You need some big reasons to put in that effort.
Most people who attempt to write a novella or other type of short read, have heard they are popular these days. They put in a day or two and after looking at the page or two that they came up with, they quit. Writing isn’t easy. But it can be a pleasurable and rewarding experience if you do it right.
You need to chunk your writing. Start by writing out your idea and the main characters. The next day, come up with chapter sizes and lengths. You would continue on this path until you had everything fleshed out and are ready to write the first sentence. This time around, you won’t quit, because you are going to reward yourself. This is a way to trick your brain into cooperating with you. Doing it the normal way, gives your brain the opportunity to whine about it being too hard. Your brain wants you to have fun and loads of pleasure. This is where rewards come in. For each section you chunk, write down what your reward will be when you finish. It can be something simple like a really hot bath with candles and a glass of wine or delaying the movie you are dying to see, until you are ready for your first reward.
Go down through your list now and put in your simple but pleasurable rewards. When you have done that, write in big letters at the end, “Once I have completed my 13K novella in 3 months, I will reward myself with dinner for two at this amazing restaurant.”
You can make your journey to a persistence mental attitude fun and full of pleasure. It is also a good idea to write a daily journal entry and showcase your growth. You can refer back to it, just to see how far you’ve come and take pleasure in the ride.
Successful People Understand Patience is a Key Habit.
Top Tips for Learning Patience
You want to go for it. Your big dream is right there in front of your eyes but you keep dropping the ball. Frustration might be your middle name. If any of this, is sounding like what you go through frequently, the reason might be something other than you think.
Yes, we do sabotage our success through a variety of ways, yet many would not name patience as one of the issues. The truth is, the road is rough and if you constantly swerve, speed up, slow down and then hit the brakes…then you need to work on your patience.
Here are tips you can start today, that will help you understand what is going on in your head and how to chill when the going gets tough.
1. Getting physically active when things aren’t going right will help you a lot.
Yes, you can get into the rough sports but one of the best things for patience, is to learn Tai chi. you can simply buy a DVD or go to YouTube. There are several reasons why Tai chi should be on your list of possibities. Tai chi is martial arts in slow motion.
Many people are not aware that if you speed up the movements, this is a true martial art for protection. By slowing it down to a crawl, you concentrate on each move and exactly how you are breathing. Your blood pressure will lower and a complete sense of calmness will come over you. After your session, you relax and at look the problem you were facing with fresh eyes. New ways to reach that big goal will come to you and the idea of quitting will fade away.
2. Keeping a journal for a variety of things in your life is a great idea.
You can journal your path to achieving your goals and see where the roadblocks popped up and how to avoid them in the future. Keeping a patience journal or diary will help you understand how you lose your patience and what things upset you the most and how quickly. Understanding this, is key to learning not to get upset and staying calm in the eye of the storm.
3. Spend some time calmly thinking about how great things take time.
You cannot rush, you need your plan, some action, add in adjustment, and then go forward. Think about those beautiful fruit trees you see in someone’s yard. They are now full with pears, peaches or beautiful apples. That didn’t happen overnight. The tree was small at first and survived wind and rain storms…perhaps even freezing winter conditions. Yet it was patient and resilient, growing to 15 feet or more.
Take your time and good things will come to you.
4. Deep breathing is often overlooked.
When you lose patience, your blood pressure and heart rate will start to rise.
When this starts to happen, say “Stop,” loudly in your head. Start to take in air deep into your lungs and hold it for 5 seconds before slowly expelling it. Think of your stress, as being small particles that are now being pushed out of your lungs and away from you forever. Keep doing this until you feel calm and ready to begin again.
5. Laughter truly is the best medicine.
Sometimes when we lose patience, it is for a very silly reason and then we build it up, until it becomes a hot burning furnace inside us. Be aware of your emotions at all times. When you feel yourself starting to lose patience with what you are doing or someone is trying to block your success, take a break. Go to a room by yourself and watch 15 to 20 minutes of comedy. Pick something you know is guaranteed to make you laugh even if you have seen it multiple times.
Yes, you can be your own doctor and your prescription is laughter.
Persistent and Patience Will Help You Achieve Your Goals Step by Step
Do you know anyone who sets one year, two year or even five year goals? If you do, you’re probably going to find that their success rate is not that high. Think about employers who ask, “Where do you see yourself in five year’s time?” Most people just make something up and hope it sounds good to the interviewer’s ears. The truth is, the vast majority of people only have a vague idea of where they will be in five years and they don’t have a concrete path.
It is recommended that you set 90 days and at the end of 90 days, re-write them, adjusting what needs work. When you set yearly goals, like many do starting January 1st, it doesn’t take long before you change course or get frustrated and quit.
When you do 90-day goals, your chances for success skyrocket.
Year long goals tend not to be super specific with laser focus. They are more of what you want, rather than what you are going to do and be, without procrastination. The reason you are far more focused, is the way you set your 90 days goals. You chunk it into 30 days, 60 and finally 90 days.
You may end up tweaking those goals as you work through them and for sure, you review the whole thing at the end of 30 days.
When you are setting your goals, the first thing that comes to your mind, is the short time period. Instead of a year, you see 30 days and your brain clicks that it is very doable and you won’t get bored. The problem with year long goals, is right off the bat, it seems so far away and as you start slugging away at it-your brain begins to tell you, “This is going to take forever.” You start to lose patience, that the rewards are so far away, they are almost impossible to see. So like many people, you end up quitting.
When you write down your personal, business and even financial goals, have a reward in mind for the end of the 30 days. Having something special to work towards, can boost your chances of success. However you need to set measurable goals, so if you don’t meet them, then you cannot reward yourself and you know in the next 30 day set, what kept you from meeting your goals.
Now you can tweak and adjust what needs to be done. Think of goal lengths as a hurdle on a track. With 90 day goals, you only have 3 hurdles, instead of 12 with a year long goal set. You won’t quit because you can see the finish line clearly and with patience, you can clear each hurdle with room to spare.
Modeling Successful People-Follow How Some People Succeeded Against All Odds
Do you aspire to something lofty in life, yet have difficulty with having a persistent drive? If that is the case, modeling someone else who suffered setbacks but would not quit…is the optimum way to succeed.
The best idea is to find someone who lives near you and spend time with them. Find out how they think and how they react to situations that might make you want to quit.
When you are unable to model someone in person, then do some research and find someone whose story resonates with you. Learn everything you can about them. Read biographies on their lives, watch documentaries, and google every story about them.
Make sure to print those stories out and study them. In your research, you will learn how these people chose not to be defeated by adversity and developed an, “I will not quit,” attitude.
To give you a head start, we will go over the lives of 7 people, who had every reason to quit but did not. This will give you inspiration to model one of them or continue to research and find your absolute match.
Jack Ma- Everyone has heard of Amazon. What about Alibaba? If that doesn’t ring any bells, then you need to look up Jack Ma. He is every bit as successful as Jeff Bezos. His never give up attitude has made him a billionaire. In Jack’s case, it shows that intelligence has less to do with success, than persistence does. Jack grew up extremely poor and first made money by working in the tourist trade. It was a rough go so he wanted to go to school but failed his college exams twice. He couldn’t even get a job at KFC. In the end, Jack was able to get into teachers college and began teaching. He wanted more, so he moved to the United States to learn computers.
Jack puts persistence first and when he sets his mind, he never gives up. He saw a need and created his own company building it to great heights.
James Dyson- Just like Edison and the lightbulb, James failed many times in his attempt to build a new style of vacuum. James wanted a vacuum with no bag and excellent power. He attempted to make his Dual Cyclone vacuum approximately 5,126 times before he actually hit the magic formula. It took 15 long years and he became a success story and is now referred to as Sir James Dyson due to his achievements. His story is one that should truly inspire you. Think about when you would have quit. Would you give an idea you were passionate about, 25, 50 or more chances? After reading this eBook and going on a new journey to ultimate persistence, your answer will be, “I would never give up, no matter how many years it took me.”
Stephen King- This one probably surprised you. Most people believe that Stephen was a success right out of the gate. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Stephen was writing and trying to publish at a very young age. In fact, by the time he was 14, the rejection letters he had received were on a nail in the wall and the weight was so much, the nail fell out. Stephen persisted and yes he did give up at first, on his breakthrough novel called, “Carrie.” He got frustrated and threw it in the trashcan but his wife, also a writer, pulled out it and told him it was a good novel. The novel, “Carrie,” was rejected 22 times after that and eventually was the rocket to Stephen’s long and successful career.
Nick Vujicic- is a very successful motivational speaker and evangelist. He was born without arms and legs, which made life very difficult for him and his parents. Nick suffered from bullying and depression early in his life and tried to kill himself. He survived the attempt and decided to change his life. A talk with a janitor in his school, gave him the courage to go out and motivate people to overcome any obstacle in their lives and persist in living the best life possible. Many thought it would be impossible for Nick to find love due to his appearance. That was not the case and he not only married but currently has four children. Nick shows us, that no matter what the circumstances, if you are willing to push forward and not quit…no matter what, you can be truly successful in whatever you choose to do.
Jack Canfield- Jack is one of the best known writers and motivational experts out there. His books, “Chicken Soup for______,” sell millions of copies. There are currently 200 plus titles in the series, which focuses on giving comfort to those who are struggling in an area of their lives and stories show that any obstacle can be overcome. Jack and his partner were surprised at how difficult it was to sell the original book. It was taken to traditional publishers approximately 200 times and rejected. Their agent explained that due to the concept of the book, they would have to have at least 20,000 already willing to buy it, if published. The idea of giving up, was one they dismissed and they found 20,000 people interested in their 1st comfort book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” They eventually found a publisher and the series took off. Along the way, they have tweaked the books and try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they live or what their economic status is. They persevered and are legends in non-fiction books.
Jim Carrey- Jim became one of the most successful actors ever. His story is one of extreme struggle and finally success. Growing up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Jim’s family suffered a financial loss, which included their home. Jim was around 15 and ended up taking a job as a janitor to help out, while the family lived out of their van. It was not the life he wanted and he was very angry about what had happened to the family. Jim decided to try standup comedy and was booed off the stage during his first attempt. He pumped himself up and continued to try, even moving at a young age to Los Angeles. It was a constant struggle and one night he found himself driving around. He stopped his car under the Hollywood sign and wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars. Jim never thought small and he carried it in his wallet until he received a $10 million dollar check for one of his movies.
Think how most teens would have reacted at having to take a job as janitor. Would you buckle down and create your dream lifestyle? You can, when you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude.
Bethany Hamilton- The mindset of Bethany Hamilton is just astounding. Growing up in Hawaii, she was in the water all the time and became a competitive surfer. Tragedy struck when she was attacked by a shark and lost her left arm. She resolved not to quit on herself and within 26 days was back on her surfboard. This is amazing considering how she would have to convince her brain, the odds of a second shark attack were beyond computing. Not only did she put aside any fears of another attack, she had to relearn how to properly balance herself on a board. With one arm gone, her balance was completely off, as surfers use their arms in the way a high wire walker uses a pole to stabilize themselves. Bethany conquered two issues in amazing fashion and she is a person to look to, when modeling a persistent attitude.
Bonus Section
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE
Having children means so many things. You bring them up and try to instill values and beliefs that will help them become wonderful people. Frequently, you are up early in the morning, for soccer, baseball or hockey games, as children need these for exercise and social skills. What about those music lessons? Perhaps you need to head to another room as your child is flaying away at the violin. One skill that many parents neglect to teach their children, is perseverance. Unless your parents taught you some lessons in that area, you probably don’t even consider what a wonderful skill it is for your child.
By teaching them perseverance, you are setting them up for success in their personal and work life.
Think about it for a moment. How many people struggle at staying in a relationship and often give up quickly in a marriage. Many times, it is because they were not taught how to adjust to rough patches and being persistent in making things work. Marriage is work, there is no doubt about it and people need the skills to cope with adversity.
Start teaching your children persistence skills today and even you can benefit from the experience.
Here are some ideas to put into practice now:
1. If allowed, children will play video games all day. While there are some benefits to video gaming, it is a past-time that should be limited. To have a well-rounded child who can flex their persistence muscles, give them new things to try on a frequent basis. It should be something you can do with them, so that they can see you fail, get up and dust yourself off and do it again. Martial classes such as taekwondo are perfect for this.
The patterns which are intricate take time to learn and you can buy DVD’s to watch and use at home, after class. Both you and your child can go from white belt to black belt together. Make a list of other skills you could practice together. Examples such as “How to Tie 10 Different types of Rope Knots, or Making Art From Recycled Parts.,” are possibilities. In rope tying, you learn to tie knots that can be used in camping, hiking and can even help in rescue situations. With making art from recycled parts, you teach your child, not only a skill but environmental issues as well. Each of these skills, won’t be learned overnight and failure, then success through persistence prevails.
2. Spend time sharing failures and successes with them. Go over some of yours and also use examples from around the world. This shows them over time, that life has ups and downs but through perseverance, one can succeed. Use examples of children who had an extremely hard time in mathematics but persistence in learning the skill, landed them a career in that field.
3. Like a sailboat on the ocean with heavy winds, sometimes you need to adjust. When the skill the child is trying to learn, is proving to be too difficult, make it slightly easier until they grasp it. On the other hand, if you notice they are succeeded too quickly to learn from it, then make the degree of difficulty a bit harder.
By planning out and putting your ideas into action, you can greatly help your child with skills that will make them mentally and physically tougher. Make no mistake, this is a tough old world and the better you prepare your children, the much better their success rate.
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE
Having a family is a blessing. It does come with many issues and if these are not dealt with early, then it is possible for a family to implode. Families with children and pets, have serious obligations. By using patience and persistence with each other, this can trickle down to the children/pets. There are so many things that need to be done in a household and one or both spouses sometimes require gentle reminders to get things done. It is when the reminders turn to nagging or outright fights, that rebellion takes place.
From the beginning, learn to explain why a certain task must be done at this point in time. Having reasons other than, “because I told you to,” will go a long ways in gaining cooperation. When a spouse has really bad habits such as overspending, sit down and patiently explain household budgeting as a team. Perhaps even writing family goals and doing family vision boards can be an added benefit to getting the message across. When a spouse understands that overspending is causing stress and taking away what might be a huge benefit, like a desired vacation…it is easier to gain trust and cooperation.
Children see and hear everything. This means that the practice you do, in being very patient with a spousal issue, the child models this in their home and school life. However it is possible that a child may need coaching in this and if both parents are onboard, this makes the task easier. It is not always easy to understand what a child goes through with their friends and school mates. It is possible that the outer influence means you have to step it up in regards to being persistent with lots of love. Children respond much better if given reasons instead being told that they must do something now. In addition, framing the question, so that it sounds like they have a say in the matter, makes them feel much more appreciated and worthy.
With regards to pets, training is a full time job when they are small. Again children model, so if they see a parent getting upset and punishing the pet, they may take it the wrong way. To avoid having your children being aggressive with the family pet, let them see you gently coaching the behavior you desire in the household.
Family life should be fun and full of love. When you practice the art of patience, combined with gentle persistence, your family life will something others will want to model.
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS
Hopefully you are not under the assumption that being an entrepreneur is easy.
Too many people look at Richard Branson and see the lifestyle he has today. Yes he owns Virgin Mobile and many other companies, which gives him the finances to own an island and go para-sailing with beautiful models. Yet, he had to be persistent in growing his business, just like anyone else.
Working for yourself has many wonderful perks, but be aware, you are responsible for everything. Once you get to the point that assistants are a viable thing, then creating, marketing and even the dull stuff like accounting are all in your hands. To be persistent and never give up on your entrepreneur dreams, here are 5 hot tips to get you in the right direction.
1. In business, the word, “No,” doesn’t have the same meaning as if you were invading someone’s personal space. It just means, “I’m not interested in this time, because you haven’t shown me enough benefits for me to say, “Yes.” To excel, don’t take the word “No,” personally. Instead, just say thank you and come back with an improved offer.
Getting frustrated is absurd. Stay calm and think about the situation, perhaps even do some visualization to allow your brain to find more solutions and benefits to your proposed customer. Cold calling sales people hear the word, “No,” everyday of their life. The biggest and the best make wonderful money because they persist, when they hear that negative word. It means try harder to them, it does not mean quit.
2. Avoid waiting until your product is perfect in your eyes. Put your best effort forth and be persistent about getting it out to the masses. Then be patient and tweak the product based on feedback. Do not give up on producing the best work you can. In internet marketing for instance, having as many “buy,” buttons up as is feasible, will give you the income you need to continue. You should then tweak, to make your products a gem.
Many people give up on internet marketing, without ever getting a single buy button up. The truly sad part is, many of these people spend one or more years…telling themselves they need to learn more before they can put out a product. Be flexible, learn from your mistakes and be persistent in getting products out to those who need what you have to offer.
3. Les Brown says it best, “You gotta be hungry.” Les was labeled as someone who could not be educated very early in the school system. At first he believed it, until a teacher told him not to and then coached him on how to respond if he wanted to succeed. Les wanted to be a DJ, which was a really cool thing back in his day.
All he could find was janitor work in a radio station. But he was hungry…hungry for success and would do anything except quit. He decided to watch the DJ’s while they worked and learned all the controls of the DJ booth. One night by accident, he was able to jump on the radio and his career took off. Les believes you should be hungry for knowledge, for life skills and of course for success. As an entrepreneur, you should always stay hungry for the next opportunity and never give up on making things happen. Remember that nothing will be handed to you, it is up to you to earn it by being persistent and going for it all the time.
4. As an entrepreneur, you will have wonderful ideas. Perhaps some of the things you visualize in your head, could help change the world. That won’t happen if they stay in your head. Someone else will put the product or idea out there. Every great idea in the world does not come to just one person. Even Charles Darwin had someone else who was onto the idea of evolution.
The same goes for the discovery of electricity. Many people have sat back, only to see the idea they thought was theirs and theirs alone, come to the market. They hesitated. If they had taken action, been persistent in bringing their product out, they could have changed their life. Regret is a terrible thing and since you are now an action person with zero quit, this is your time.
5. We all have only so many days on earth. Decide today, that you are committed to stay with your entrepreneurship for life. Never say that you will give it a shot for perhaps 5 years and if it doesn’t work out, perhaps you will go back to school. Once your mind understands that you live and breathe
entrepreneurship and will until your final day…it will come onboard and assist you. Look to those from history who had a vision and would not give up no matter what. The general Hannibal is one that you can learn from. To conquer his foes, he had to take his warrior elephants across the Alps. There were no roads. His motto was, “We will either find a way or make one.” An entrepreneur who has the mindset of Hannibal, will always succeed
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
SILENCING THE NEGATIVE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD 6
HOW WE EQUATE “GOING FOR IT” AS PAIN 10
ENJOYING THE PLEASURE OF THE JOURNEY TO A PERSISTENT ATTITUDE 15
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND PATIENCE IS A KEY HABIT. TOP TIPS FOR LEARNING PATIENCE 20
PERSISTENT AND PATIENCE WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS STEP BY STEP 23
MODELING SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE-FOLLOW HOW SOME PEOPLE SUCCEEDED AGAINST ALL ODDS. 25
BONUS SECTION 30
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE 30
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE 33
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS 35
INTRODUCTION
As advanced as we are, humans still need to build good habits and let go of the bad ones. Persistence is a habit which like a muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In the animal kingdom, persistence comes naturally.
One only has to think of the honey badger, to see persistence in constant action. This small animal is fearless. It will fight a lion and not back down. When it comes to food, the honey badger has no equal. It will eat anything including venomous snakes. Honey badgers are basically immune to snake venom but they sometimes do get such a dose, that it knocks them out for a few minutes. Once they awaken, it is off to find another snake. They will dig right into a honeybee nest and take on the angry bees to get their honey fix. When it comes to food and fighting, the honey badger gets an A+ in persistence.
The persistence drive in humans has declined over the years. People will find a multitude of reasons to quit any endeavor the moment it gets difficult. They want success but are unwilling to put in the work and stick to a game plan.
There are a number of factors that can be considered, when trying to understand the “it will just be easier to quit,” attitude. As children are raised in a hectic world today, some parents find that they would rather allow their children to give up on certain things, rather than be patient and persistent in teaching them how to win at life. Once a child sees that being aggressively resistant towards a task, allows them the chance to do something more pleasurable, they will build upon that.
As adults of any age will find, the ability to focus on a goal or plan can be difficult. This is due to the high pace world we now live in. Giving up is starting to become the normal thing to do, once a roadblock appears. For most people it far easier to say, “This is too hard, this is too stressful, I cannot do it.” Once they convince themselves that giving up is the way to go, it now becomes the easy way out for anything they do in life. When a relationship becomes difficult, they have already built a neural pathway in their brain…that is the highway to giving up without much of a fight. Everything we do, creates neural pathways and we strengthen those pathways with repetition.
Look around you. When you see successful people, are they smartest people in the room? Frequently the answer is no. Smart people can get frustrated and give up, just like anyone else. If you really dig deep and even ask some questions, you find the successful people are the ones with the biggest persistence muscle. They were either born with or learned the ability of going forward no matter what life throws at them. In this eBook, the aim is to teach you how to be extremely persistent, while being patient at the same time. Your ultimate growth will come from this.
The goal of this eBook, is to give you a new way of thinking. We will show you how to break the negative pathways in your brain and build new strong positive pathways. In addition, we will cover why it is so important for your success in life, to full understand and implement the idea of having a powerful, never give up no matter what attitude. Following this eBook will greatly improve your chances of having a very successful life.
Silencing the Negative Voice in Your Head
Everyone has the same super computer available. Your brain is a marvelous bit of engineering and capable of tremendous amounts of data processing. Your stored memories are all there. Sometimes they are easy to access and at other times, it takes some work to open certain file drawers in your brain.
Not all the memories are good of course. The science of NLP which stands for neuro-linguistic programming can help with changing what a memory means to you. It is certainly an area of study that you should consider. To start your pathway to a better use of your personal super computer, let’s talk about “how you talk to yourself.”
This is extremely important when it comes to having a positive mental image of yourself. When a person says that they cannot do something, often an image of failure accompanies that statement. They have stacked experiences of giving up, when the going got hard. In addition, they have added tags, just like the ones people use in social media. For example, you may have mental tags like these:
#toohard
#failure
#painful
#giveup
#neverwin
The list for some people could be very long. It wasn’t always that way. As children, we thought we could do anything, including fly. Years of negative conditioning, from family, friends, school and eventually ourselves…led us to the conclusion that sometimes it was just easier to give up.
When we hit our teenage years, this really kicked into overdrive and eventually the negative self-talk outweighs the positive things we say internally and occasionally out loud with conviction.
The negative self-talk has multiple consequences and must be dealt with. If you know people who suffer from lack of self-esteem, poor self-confidence and depression, then you are likely looking at someone who replays negatives conversations in their head daily. They use poor word choices like, “I can’t, I should have, and I could have been or done this.” Repetive negative self-talk, layers itself in the brain and one could compare it to a physical thing like artery plaque in the heart region. Both are dangerous and should be taken care of immediately.
In order to build your never give up attitude, you will need to change how you talk to yourself. When you do this, you will not only be unstoppable, but all the negative issues discussed, will start to dissolve. You will feel amazing and have superior confidence in all that you do. Finally those black clouds of depression will lift. A word of caution here, if your depression is a chemical imbalance, then you need to see professional advice.
You can start your can do attitude, by eliminating negative words from your vocabulary and replace them with positive sayings. Start by making a list of negative words you are aware float around in your head like garbage in the ocean. Both need to be cleaned up, or there will be severe consequences. Now draw a line through each negative word and write down a positive word beside it. This will be your new “go to” word.
Understand and accept that getting help is a good thing. Many people feel weak when seeking assistance. However going to groups that discuss positivity and success, can be very helpful for you. You will meet new people who are on the same journey. They too have decided that persistence and never ever, give up…is the way they want to lead their lives.
Listening to, or reading self-help books is something everyone should be doing and quite frankly, this should be taught in elementary schools and upwards. Using your car as a university is something motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar preached about all his life. He believed listening to the car radio was a time waster and that we should feed our minds with positive words daily. Drive to work and listen to Zig or another master of motivation, Les Brown. In 30 days, you will see a massive difference in the way you think.
For our purposes today, there is a recommended reading. Dr. Shad Helmstetter wrote an outstanding book entitled, “What to say when you talk to yourself.” In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Helmstetter gives you a new way to think about and talk to yourself. Here is an example of a phrase that if you repeated every night before bed, would have a significant effect on your overall self-esteem. “I know that what I believe about myself, is what I will become. So I believe in the best for myself.”
Here is how you stop tossing and turning while replaying negative conversations in your mind. Memorize, the phrase Dr. Helmstetter has put together and repeat it over and over until you drift off to sleep. When your mind tries to go back to negativity, tell it to stop and then continue to repeat the phrase. When you believe in the best for yourself, then you will go for it and quitting will not be an option.
To get the most out of the book, pick 5 to10 phrases that resonate with you. When you read those phrases, you get goosebumps or feel a little rush of adrenaline. Write those phrases out on index cards and then put them all around your house.
If you have a family, get them involved. Have 2-3 of these index cards taped to your fridge and tell your kids, before they can open the fridge, they must say each phrase once as if it is a magic key. Put one in your bedroom that you can read while getting dressed in the morning. Don’t forget where you spent a lot of alone time. Yes, the bathroom is a perfect place to put an index card. Read the index card over and over, instead of looking at the drama on your Facebook feed.
You should be getting really excited now. To get the most out of this eBook, you should read it more than once and put yourself into massive action. Let’s move into pain vs pleasure and how it drives your life.
How We Equate “Going For It” as Pain
It’s been said that people will do anything to avoid pain and will seek pleasure, even if they know in the long run, life is going to get more painful. Pain avoidance is something many people excel at. An example would be someone who believes they have a novel inside them. The idea keeps cropping up and begging to be written.
As person starts and stops the writing process, they give way to negative self-talk and then look for a comfort. That comfort might be laying on the couch and watching television all day because they have mentally told themselves,”Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better and I will really go for it. Maybe write 5K to 10K…just hammer it out.”
Tomorrow arrives and the thought of sitting in a chair seems to be painful, so they decide to get ready by having a nice hot coffee. Once the coffee is done, well there is a game show on, so better watch that and have a few laughs.
The procrastination they are doing is out of a belief that writing is going to be hard, really hard and they have to be 100% prepared. But they convince themselves they aren’t today, so perhaps they should go have a hamburger and fries. Substituting what they believe is pleasure-a hamburger and fries vs writing, is sadly the route the vast majority of people take.
We all love pleasure of any kind. It makes us feel good and drives away any sadness, even if only temporarily. With the advertising and the internet, people are even more persuaded to seek pleasure only. They see the successful people and believe there was no pain for those people to get where they are today. Their minds are filled with the best houses, the best cars and vacations to sunny beaches.
This is one reason why lotto tickets sales are in the billions. Many people convince themselves that they will win the lotto and then all their dreams come true. The opposite usually happens after a huge lotto win. In a short time the money is gone and perhaps even the people they loved, have disappeared.
A recent study showed that a notable amount of people were counting on a huge lotto win to fund their retirement. Instead of putting in the extra work and investing wisely, these people choose to play the lotto multiple times per week.
How do we stop this pain vs pleasure debate? The key thing is to re-label what pain is. There is physical pain and mental pain. When someone is in chronic pain, they tend to dwell on it and experience a great deal of depression. Learning to re-label physical pain, helps to cope with it. When a person understands that pain means they are still alive, with the opportunity to go for it and succeed, then it is possible for them to excel.
When you have a chronic disease and zero pain, it is likely because you have passed from this world. Pain tells us we are alive. There are many extreme sports fanatics that have learned to re-label pain and make it pleasure. There are mountain climbers with no legs and arms that convince themselves to scale some tough mountains. As the pain sets in, they equate it to pleasure because they are alive and headed to the top of the world, physically and mentally.
Mental pain needs to be re-labeled as well, in order to really develop the “no quit,” attitude. There are different types of mental pain associated with dropping procrastination and instead have a persistent drive. Here are the steps to take when you start to feel mental pain.
Step 1
Take a few calm moments to think about what is going on inside your head. Take deep even breaths and relax all your muscles. Now ask yourself what emotions you are feeling in that moment.
Step 2
Once you know the emotion, write it down on a piece of paper. Then see it as it is, a negative thought that disrupts you. Now pick a word that can replace the negative with a positive. Here are some examples. When you mentally say to yourself, “I fear doing this because……” replace with, “I’m feeling some anticipation right now and that means things are going to get good.”
When you say to yourself, “I feel pressure to do this,” replace it with, “I’ve got a task and I can chunk it, which makes it very doable.”
Every emotion you feel, you have control over. Instead of allowing negative thoughts about doing something because it takes you out of your comfort zone or you would rather doing some very pleasurable instead…you can change it. Make your word choices turn pain into the pleasure of going for it and being everything you ever wanted to be. The massive pleasure that you get at the end, is worth the effort of changing your task from a pain one to an inspiring thought of pleasure.
Another method to change from pain to pleasure, is breaking the habitual loop of pain memories in your brain. When you want to develop a “go for it,” attitude, you may be blocked if you have a number of memories you replay, that are focused on the number of times you quit.
Think of those memories as flash drives. Each flash drives has the time you quit school, quit three jobs in a row or constantly gave up on relationships the minute it got rough. Sit back and visualize that flashdrive and when you can picture it, mentally throw it into the air and blast it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Immediately think of a memory when you had something to do and you went for it 100% and remember exactly how you felt at that moment. Think of all the pleasure you got from yourself and those around you, who congratulated you on the massive success. If you have difficulty thinking of that one time, then think of something you wanted to succeed at and act as if it happened. Your brain is not able to tell the difference from a real event or one that you imagined.
If you find that hard to believe, then think of the times you put yourself into a deep state of fear, when you heard a noise. It may have just been a creaky board in a house but suddenly you were able to transform that noise into a killer with a knife. Remember how you got goosebumps and chills? That is you, creating a scene that your brain is believing to be true.
The big key to changing the negative CD in your head, is finding a technique that works for you. Experiment with this. If blasting the CD with a shotgun is not working, try dissolving the CD in a big vat of acid. Work on this until you find an image that helps you erase the CD and the memories it hold…permanently.
When you practice the blasting apart or erasing of old negative hurts, it will lead to that thought having little or no power over you. That means you are free to replace the thought with one that is positive and gives you pleasure.
Enjoying the Pleasure of the Journey to a Persistent Attitude
One of the biggest obstacles to having a persistent attitude, is believing everything should be easy. We constantly hear or read stories about people who have had massive success, however the reporting is slanted to only show the rewards of success. Frequently news reports leave out all the bumps in the road that sprang up in front of that successful person. This is turn, leads to a wrongful assumption in most people’s mind. They begin to believe success is easy and when it eludes them, it means they are not worthy and should not try anymore.
To be persistence and achieve success, you must change what your beliefs are. When you read a biography of a successful person, take note of what obstacles they faced and how they broke them down with a never quit attitude.
Just for a moment, sit back and think about this. How would life be if everything was extremely simple and you didn’t have to do anything to see success? If you really are sincere in your thoughts, you will realize that life would actually be very boring. Setting and achieving goals gives us huge pleasure but only if we had to knock down some hurdles to get there.
Obstacles make you stronger and add much pleasure to the end result. You look back and see how you smashed through those roadblocks… nothing could hold you back. Now you feel intense pleasure and are ready for a new challenge. To make your journey more pleasurable, let’s go over some ways to get the real juice out of life.
One man who excels in persistence, is former navy seal, David Goggins. His life story is incredible and worth reading about. Later in his navy seal life, he started training the people who were trying to enter the seal program and found that they were for the most part, big and tough…everywhere except between the ears. He resolved to change that and to make better participants for seal training.
What he learned to believe, is your need to grow your mental toughness. When you do this, it won’t be easy but you can take pleasure in a type of growth you may never experienced before. We all grow up and some of us exercise and do sports which helps our muscles grow. It is not easy but the rewards feel good. Mental toughness is no different. Here is how you can start building your mental toughness today.
1. Read the book, “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway,” by Susan Jeffers.
2. From that book, you will learn to do something uncomfortable everyday and do it, because it won’t kill you.
3. Some ideas are making 2-3 calls a day, if you are uncomfortable calling people, especially for work purposes, Susan gives you many ideas. Here is one you can try today. Go to a coffee shop and talk to everyone within three feet of you, if meeting new people makes you uncomfortable. You don’t even have to sell them anything, just get used to approaching people in a friendly manner.
Now that you have the idea, make a list of things that make you uncomfortable and do each one until you are fully comfortable. Be patient and do a chunk a day. Don’t try to pick up the phone and call 20 people to make an appointment, if cold calling terrifies you. Bit by bit, your mental toughness will strengthen, and you will be able to do thinks that you would have quit on before.
It also helps to give yourself a tiny reward each time you do an uncomfortable task. Make your 3 calls, have a cappuccino and listen to 15 minutes of your favorite band. These little rewards of pleasure, are enough to get your brain onboard with change. Don’t think that is difficult. You are not G. Gordon Liddy, who as a young boy, wanted to prove to himself that he was fearless. His idea? Find a rat, roast it and eat it and nothing else could possibly stop him in anything he wanted to do.
Think about something you have always wanted to do, but never started or did give it a shot but quickly gave up. The aim here is not to dwell on the failure, just to get a new starting point. For anything you want, you need to have an intense reason why. Just wanting to get a black belt in taekwondo because it is something that John at work did, or you love martial arts movies…is definitely a recipe for quitting before the end. No matter what it is you want to accomplish, think about it and write it down. Then list 5 reasons why you want to do this. Each reason should move you to the point, that just thinking about it gets you excited.
Next up, decide how long it will take to get that black belt, write that novella or get the supervisors job you have always dreamed of. Yes, there are steps to getting promotions. You need to really look into that, because it rarely happens just because you have a pleasing personality.
For our example, let’s look at writing a novella. Writing a novella or any size book for Amazon Kindle is very popular. However, if you are thinking of doing it just for the money, it is not likely going to work. You need some big reasons to put in that effort.
Most people who attempt to write a novella or other type of short read, have heard they are popular these days. They put in a day or two and after looking at the page or two that they came up with, they quit. Writing isn’t easy. But it can be a pleasurable and rewarding experience if you do it right.
You need to chunk your writing. Start by writing out your idea and the main characters. The next day, come up with chapter sizes and lengths. You would continue on this path until you had everything fleshed out and are ready to write the first sentence. This time around, you won’t quit, because you are going to reward yourself. This is a way to trick your brain into cooperating with you. Doing it the normal way, gives your brain the opportunity to whine about it being too hard. Your brain wants you to have fun and loads of pleasure. This is where rewards come in. For each section you chunk, write down what your reward will be when you finish. It can be something simple like a really hot bath with candles and a glass of wine or delaying the movie you are dying to see, until you are ready for your first reward.
Go down through your list now and put in your simple but pleasurable rewards. When you have done that, write in big letters at the end, “Once I have completed my 13K novella in 3 months, I will reward myself with dinner for two at this amazing restaurant.”
You can make your journey to a persistence mental attitude fun and full of pleasure. It is also a good idea to write a daily journal entry and showcase your growth. You can refer back to it, just to see how far you’ve come and take pleasure in the ride.
Successful People Understand Patience is a Key Habit. Top Tips for Learning Patience
You want to go for it. Your big dream is right there in front of your eyes but you keep dropping the ball. Frustration might be your middle name. If any of this, is sounding like what you go through frequently, the reason might be something other than you think.
Yes, we do sabotage our success through a variety of ways, yet many would not name patience as one of the issues. The truth is, the road is rough and if you constantly swerve, speed up, slow down and then hit the brakes…then you need to work on your patience. Here are tips you can start today, that will help you understand what is going on in your head and how to chill when the going gets tough.
1. Getting physically active when things aren’t going right will help you a lot. Yes, you can get into the rough sports but one of the best things for patience, is to learn Tai chi. you can simply buy a DVD or go to YouTube. There are several reasons why Tai chi should be on your list of possibities. Tai chi is martial arts in slow motion.
Many people are not aware that if you speed up the movements, this is a true martial art for protection. By slowing it down to a crawl, you concentrate on each move and exactly how you are breathing. Your blood pressure will lower and a complete sense of calmness will come over you. After your session, you relax and at look the problem you were facing with fresh eyes. New ways to reach that big goal will come to you and the idea of quitting will fade away.
2. Keeping a journal for a variety of things in your life is a great idea. You can journal your path to achieving your goals and see where the roadblocks popped up and how to avoid them in the future. Keeping a patience journal or diary will help you understand how you lose your patience and what things upset you the most and how quickly. Understanding this, is key to learning not to get upset and staying calm in the eye of the storm.
3. Spend some time calmly thinking about how great things take time. You cannot rush, you need your plan, some action, add in adjustment, and then go forward. Think about those beautiful fruit trees you see in someone’s yard. They are now full with pears, peaches or beautiful apples. That didn’t happen overnight. The tree was small at first and survived wind and rain storms…perhaps even freezing winter conditions. Yet it was patient and resilient, growing to 15 feet or more. Take your time and good things will come to you.
4. Deep breathing is often overlooked. When you lose patience, your blood pressure and heart rate will start to rise. When this starts to happen, say “Stop,” loudly in your head. Start to take in air deep into your lungs and hold it for 5 seconds before slowly expelling it. Think of your stress, as being small particles that are now being pushed out of your lungs and away from you forever. Keep doing this until you feel calm and ready to begin again.
5. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Sometimes when we lose patience, it is for a very silly reason and then we build it up, until it becomes a hot burning furnace inside us. Be aware of your emotions at all times. When you feel yourself starting to lose patience with what you are doing or someone is trying to block your success, take a break. Go to a room by yourself and watch 15 to 20 minutes of comedy. Pick something you know is guaranteed to make you laugh even if you have seen it multiple times. Yes, you can be your own doctor and your prescription is laughter.
Persistent and Patience Will Help You Achieve Your Goals Step by Step
Do you know anyone who sets one year, two year or even five year goals? If you do, you’re probably going to find that their success rate is not that high. Think about employers who ask, “Where do you see yourself in five year’s time?” Most people just make something up and hope it sounds good to the interviewer’s ears. The truth is, the vast majority of people only have a vague idea of where they will be in five years and they don’t have a concrete path.
It is recommended that you set 90 days and at the end of 90 days, re-write them, adjusting what needs work. When you set yearly goals, like many do starting January 1st, it doesn’t take long before you change course or get frustrated and quit. When you do 90-day goals, your chances for success skyrocket.
Year long goals tend not to be super specific with laser focus. They are more of what you want, rather than what you are going to do and be, without procrastination. The reason you are far more focused, is the way you set your 90 days goals. You chunk it into 30 days, 60 and finally 90 days. You may end up tweaking those goals as you work through them and for sure, you review the whole thing at the end of 30 days.
When you are setting your goals, the first thing that comes to your mind, is the short time period. Instead of a year, you see 30 days and your brain clicks that it is very doable and you won’t get bored. The problem with year long goals, is right off the bat, it seems so far away and as you start slugging away at it-your brain begins to tell you, “This is going to take forever.” You start to lose patience, that the rewards are so far away, they are almost impossible to see. So like many people, you end up quitting.
When you write down your personal, business and even financial goals, have a reward in mind for the end of the 30 days. Having something special to work towards, can boost your chances of success. However you need to set measurable goals, so if you don’t meet them, then you cannot reward yourself and you know in the next 30 day set, what kept you from meeting your goals.
Now you can tweak and adjust what needs to be done. Think of goal lengths as a hurdle on a track. With 90 day goals, you only have 3 hurdles, instead of 12 with a year long goal set. You won’t quit because you can see the finish line clearly and with patience, you can clear each hurdle with room to spare.
Modeling Successful People-Follow How Some People Succeeded Against All Odds
Do you aspire to something lofty in life, yet have difficulty with having a persistent drive? If that is the case, modeling someone else who suffered setbacks but would not quit…is the optimum way to succeed. The best idea is to find someone who lives near you and spend time with them. Find out how they think and how they react to situations that might make you want to quit. When you are unable to model someone in person, then do some research and find someone whose story resonates with you. Learn everything you can about them. Read biographies on their lives, watch documentaries, and google every story about them.
Make sure to print those stories out and study them. In your research, you will learn how these people chose not to be defeated by adversity and developed an, “I will not quit,” attitude.
To give you a head start, we will go over the lives of 7 people, who had every reason to quit but did not. This will give you inspiration to model one of them or continue to research and find your absolute match.
Jack Ma- Everyone has heard of Amazon. What about Alibaba? If that doesn’t ring any bells, then you need to look up Jack Ma. He is every bit as successful as Jeff Bezos. His never give up attitude has made him a billionaire. In Jack’s case, it shows that intelligence has less to do with success, than persistence does. Jack grew up extremely poor and first made money by working in the tourist trade. It was a rough go so he wanted to go to school but failed his college exams twice. He couldn’t even get a job at KFC. In the end, Jack was able to get into teachers college and began teaching. He wanted more, so he moved to the United States to learn computers. Jack puts persistence first and when he sets his mind, he never gives up. He saw a need and created his own company building it to great heights.
James Dyson- Just like Edison and the lightbulb, James failed many times in his attempt to build a new style of vacuum. James wanted a vacuum with no bag and excellent power. He attempted to make his Dual Cyclone vacuum approximately 5,126 times before he actually hit the magic formula. It took 15 long years and he became a success story and is now referred to as Sir James Dyson due to his achievements. His story is one that should truly inspire you. Think about when you would have quit. Would you give an idea you were passionate about, 25, 50 or more chances? After reading this eBook and going on a new journey to ultimate persistence, your answer will be, “I would never give up, no matter how many years it took me.”
Stephen King- This one probably surprised you. Most people believe that Stephen was a success right out of the gate. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Stephen was writing and trying to publish at a very young age. In fact, by the time he was 14, the rejection letters he had received were on a nail in the wall and the weight was so much, the nail fell out. Stephen persisted and yes he did give up at first, on his breakthrough novel called, “Carrie.” He got frustrated and threw it in the trashcan but his wife, also a writer, pulled out it and told him it was a good novel. The novel, “Carrie,” was rejected 22 times after that and eventually was the rocket to Stephen’s long and successful career.
Nick Vujicic- is a very successful motivational speaker and evangelist. He was born without arms and legs, which made life very difficult for him and his parents. Nick suffered from bullying and depression early in his life and tried to kill himself. He survived the attempt and decided to change his life. A talk with a janitor in his school, gave him the courage to go out and motivate people to overcome any obstacle in their lives and persist in living the best life possible. Many thought it would be impossible for Nick to find love due to his appearance. That was not the case and he not only married but currently has four children. Nick shows us, that no matter what the circumstances, if you are willing to push forward and not quit…no matter what, you can be truly successful in whatever you choose to do.
Jack Canfield- Jack is one of the best known writers and motivational experts out there. His books, “Chicken Soup for______,” sell millions of copies. There are currently 200 plus titles in the series, which focuses on giving comfort to those who are struggling in an area of their lives and stories show that any obstacle can be overcome. Jack and his partner were surprised at how difficult it was to sell the original book. It was taken to traditional publishers approximately 200 times and rejected. Their agent explained that due to the concept of the book, they would have to have at least 20,000 already willing to buy it, if published. The idea of giving up, was one they dismissed and they found 20,000 people interested in their 1st comfort book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” They eventually found a publisher and the series took off. Along the way, they have tweaked the books and try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they live or what their economic status is. They persevered and are legends in non-fiction books.
Jim Carrey- Jim became one of the most successful actors ever. His story is one of extreme struggle and finally success. Growing up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Jim’s family suffered a financial loss, which included their home. Jim was around 15 and ended up taking a job as a janitor to help out, while the family lived out of their van. It was not the life he wanted and he was very angry about what had happened to the family. Jim decided to try standup comedy and was booed off the stage during his first attempt. He pumped himself up and continued to try, even moving at a young age to Los Angeles. It was a constant struggle and one night he found himself driving around. He stopped his car under the Hollywood sign and wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars. Jim never thought small and he carried it in his wallet until he received a $10 million dollar check for one of his movies.
Think how most teens would have reacted at having to take a job as janitor. Would you buckle down and create your dream lifestyle? You can, when you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude.
Bethany Hamilton- The mindset of Bethany Hamilton is just astounding. Growing up in Hawaii, she was in the water all the time and became a competitive surfer. Tragedy struck when she was attacked by a shark and lost her left arm. She resolved not to quit on herself and within 26 days was back on her surfboard. This is amazing considering how she would have to convince her brain, the odds of a second shark attack were beyond computing. Not only did she put aside any fears of another attack, she had to relearn how to properly balance herself on a board. With one arm gone, her balance was completely off, as surfers use their arms in the way a high wire walker uses a pole to stabilize themselves. Bethany conquered two issues in amazing fashion and she is a person to look to, when modeling a persistent attitude.
Bonus Section
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE
Having children means so many things. You bring them up and try to instill values and beliefs that will help them become wonderful people. Frequently, you are up early in the morning, for soccer, baseball or hockey games, as children need these for exercise and social skills. What about those music lessons? Perhaps you need to head to another room as your child is flaying away at the violin. One skill that many parents neglect to teach their children, is perseverance. Unless your parents taught you some lessons in that area, you probably don’t even consider what a wonderful skill it is for your child. By teaching them perseverance, you are setting them up for success in their personal and work life.
Think about it for a moment. How many people struggle at staying in a relationship and often give up quickly in a marriage. Many times, it is because they were not taught how to adjust to rough patches and being persistent in making things work. Marriage is work, there is no doubt about it and people need the skills to cope with adversity.
Start teaching your children persistence skills today and even you can benefit from the experience. Here are some ideas to put into practice now:
1. If allowed, children will play video games all day. While there are some benefits to video gaming, it is a past-time that should be limited. To have a well-rounded child who can flex their persistence muscles, give them new things to try on a frequent basis. It should be something you can do with them, so that they can see you fail, get up and dust yourself off and do it again. Martial classes such as taekwondo are perfect for this.
The patterns which are intricate take time to learn and you can buy DVD’s to watch and use at home, after class. Both you and your child can go from white belt to black belt together. Make a list of other skills you could practice together. Examples such as “How to Tie 10 Different types of Rope Knots, or Making Art From Recycled Parts.,” are possibilities. In rope tying, you learn to tie knots that can be used in camping, hiking and can even help in rescue situations. With making art from recycled parts, you teach your child, not only a skill but environmental issues as well. Each of these skills, won’t be learned overnight and failure, then success through persistence prevails.
2. Spend time sharing failures and successes with them. Go over some of yours and also use examples from around the world. This shows them over time, that life has ups and downs but through perseverance, one can succeed. Use examples of children who had an extremely hard time in mathematics but persistence in learning the skill, landed them a career in that field.
3. Like a sailboat on the ocean with heavy winds, sometimes you need to adjust. When the skill the child is trying to learn, is proving to be too difficult, make it slightly easier until they grasp it. On the other hand, if you notice they are succeeded too quickly to learn from it, then make the degree of difficulty a bit harder.
By planning out and putting your ideas into action, you can greatly help your child with skills that will make them mentally and physically tougher. Make no mistake, this is a tough old world and the better you prepare your children, the much better their success rate.
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE
Having a family is a blessing. It does come with many issues and if these are not dealt with early, then it is possible for a family to implode. Families with children and pets, have serious obligations. By using patience and persistence with each other, this can trickle down to the children/pets. There are so many things that need to be done in a household and one or both spouses sometimes require gentle reminders to get things done. It is when the reminders turn to nagging or outright fights, that rebellion takes place.
From the beginning, learn to explain why a certain task must be done at this point in time. Having reasons other than, “because I told you to,” will go a long ways in gaining cooperation. When a spouse has really bad habits such as overspending, sit down and patiently explain household budgeting as a team. Perhaps even writing family goals and doing family vision boards can be an added benefit to getting the message across. When a spouse understands that overspending is causing stress and taking away what might be a huge benefit, like a desired vacation…it is easier to gain trust and cooperation.
Children see and hear everything. This means that the practice you do, in being very patient with a spousal issue, the child models this in their home and school life. However it is possible that a child may need coaching in this and if both parents are onboard, this makes the task easier. It is not always easy to understand what a child goes through with their friends and school mates. It is possible that the outer influence means you have to step it up in regards to being persistent with lots of love. Children respond much better if given reasons instead being told that they must do something now. In addition, framing the question, so that it sounds like they have a say in the matter, makes them feel much more appreciated and worthy.
With regards to pets, training is a full time job when they are small. Again children model, so if they see a parent getting upset and punishing the pet, they may take it the wrong way. To avoid having your children being aggressive with the family pet, let them see you gently coaching the behavior you desire in the household.
Family life should be fun and full of love. When you practice the art of patience, combined with gentle persistence, your family life will something others will want to model.
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS
Hopefully you are not under the assumption that being an entrepreneur is easy.
Too many people look at Richard Branson and see the lifestyle he has today. Yes he owns Virgin Mobile and many other companies, which gives him the finances to own an island and go para-sailing with beautiful models. Yet, he had to be persistent in growing his business, just like anyone else.
Working for yourself has many wonderful perks, but be aware, you are responsible for everything. Once you get to the point that assistants are a viable thing, then creating, marketing and even the dull stuff like accounting are all in your hands. To be persistent and never give up on your entrepreneur dreams, here are 5 hot tips to get you in the right direction.
1. In business, the word, “No,” doesn’t have the same meaning as if you were invading someone’s personal space. It just means, “I’m not interested in this time, because you haven’t shown me enough benefits for me to say, “Yes.” To excel, don’t take the word “No,” personally. Instead, just say thank you and come back with an improved offer.
Getting frustrated is absurd. Stay calm and think about the situation, perhaps even do some visualization to allow your brain to find more solutions and benefits to your proposed customer. Cold calling sales people hear the word, “No,” everyday of their life. The biggest and the best make wonderful money because they persist, when they hear that negative word. It means try harder to them, it does not mean quit.
2. Avoid waiting until your product is perfect in your eyes. Put your best effort forth and be persistent about getting it out to the masses. Then be patient and tweak the product based on feedback. Do not give up on producing the best work you can. In internet marketing for instance, having as many “buy,” buttons up as is feasible, will give you the income you need to continue. You should then tweak, to make your products a gem.
Many people give up on internet marketing, without ever getting a single buy button up. The truly sad part is, many of these people spend one or more years…telling themselves they need to learn more before they can put out a product. Be flexible, learn from your mistakes and be persistent in getting products out to those who need what you have to offer.
3. Les Brown says it best, “You gotta be hungry.” Les was labeled as someone who could not be educated very early in the school system. At first he believed it, until a teacher told him not to and then coached him on how to respond if he wanted to succeed. Les wanted to be a DJ, which was a really cool thing back in his day.
All he could find was janitor work in a radio station. But he was hungry…hungry for success and would do anything except quit. He decided to watch the DJ’s while they worked and learned all the controls of the DJ booth. One night by accident, he was able to jump on the radio and his career took off. Les believes you should be hungry for knowledge, for life skills and of course for success. As an entrepreneur, you should always stay hungry for the next opportunity and never give up on making things happen. Remember that nothing will be handed to you, it is up to you to earn it by being persistent and going for it all the time.
4. As an entrepreneur, you will have wonderful ideas. Perhaps some of the things you visualize in your head, could help change the world. That won’t happen if they stay in your head. Someone else will put the product or idea out there. Every great idea in the world does not come to just one person. Even Charles Darwin had someone else who was onto the idea of evolution.
The same goes for the discovery of electricity. Many people have sat back, only to see the idea they thought was theirs and theirs alone, come to the market. They hesitated. If they had taken action, been persistent in bringing their product out, they could have changed their life. Regret is a terrible thing and since you are now an action person with zero quit, this is your time.
5. We all have only so many days on earth. Decide today, that you are committed to stay with your entrepreneurship for life. Never say that you will give it a shot for perhaps 5 years and if it doesn’t work out, perhaps you will go back to school. Once your mind understands that you live and breathe
entrepreneurship and will until your final day…it will come onboard and assist you. Look to those from history who had a vision and would not give up no matter what. The general Hannibal is one that you can learn from. To conquer his foes, he had to take his warrior elephants across the Alps. There were no roads. His motto was, “We will either find a way or make one.” An entrepreneur who has the mindset of Hannibal, will always succeed.
The Power of A “Never Give Up” Attitude
[BRANDING]
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
SILENCING THE NEGATIVE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD 6
HOW WE EQUATE “GOING FOR IT” AS PAIN 10
ENJOYING THE PLEASURE OF THE JOURNEY TO A PERSISTENT ATTITUDE 15
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND PATIENCE IS A KEY HABIT. TOP TIPS FOR LEARNING PATIENCE 20
PERSISTENT AND PATIENCE WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS STEP BY STEP 23
MODELING SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE-FOLLOW HOW SOME PEOPLE SUCCEEDED AGAINST ALL ODDS. 25
BONUS SECTION 30
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE 30
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE 33
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS 35
INTRODUCTION
As advanced as we are, humans still need to build good habits and let go of the bad ones. Persistence is a habit which like a muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In the animal kingdom, persistence comes naturally.
One only has to think of the honey badger, to see persistence in constant action. This small animal is fearless. It will fight a lion and not back down. When it comes to food, the honey badger has no equal. It will eat anything including venomous snakes. Honey badgers are basically immune to snake venom but they sometimes do get such a dose, that it knocks them out for a few minutes. Once they awaken, it is off to find another snake. They will dig right into a honeybee nest and take on the angry bees to get their honey fix. When it comes to food and fighting, the honey badger gets an A+ in persistence.
The persistence drive in humans has declined over the years. People will find a multitude of reasons to quit any endeavor the moment it gets difficult. They want success but are unwilling to put in the work and stick to a game plan.
There are a number of factors that can be considered, when trying to understand the “it will just be easier to quit,” attitude. As children are raised in a hectic world today, some parents find that they would rather allow their children to give up on certain things, rather than be patient and persistent in teaching them how to win at life. Once a child sees that being aggressively resistant towards a task, allows them the chance to do something more pleasurable, they will build upon that.
As adults of any age will find, the ability to focus on a goal or plan can be difficult. This is due to the high pace world we now live in. Giving up is starting to become the normal thing to do, once a roadblock appears. For most people it far easier to say, “This is too hard, this is too stressful, I cannot do it.” Once they convince themselves that giving up is the way to go, it now becomes the easy way out for anything they do in life. When a relationship becomes difficult, they have already built a neural pathway in their brain…that is the highway to giving up without much of a fight. Everything we do, creates neural pathways and we strengthen those pathways with repetition.
Look around you. When you see successful people, are they smartest people in the room? Frequently the answer is no. Smart people can get frustrated and give up, just like anyone else. If you really dig deep and even ask some questions, you find the successful people are the ones with the biggest persistence muscle. They were either born with or learned the ability of going forward no matter what life throws at them. In this eBook, the aim is to teach you how to be extremely persistent, while being patient at the same time. Your ultimate growth will come from this.
The goal of this eBook, is to give you a new way of thinking. We will show you how to break the negative pathways in your brain and build new strong positive pathways. In addition, we will cover why it is so important for your success in life, to full understand and implement the idea of having a powerful, never give up no matter what attitude. Following this eBook will greatly improve your chances of having a very successful life.
Silencing the Negative Voice in Your Head
Everyone has the same super computer available. Your brain is a marvelous bit of engineering and capable of tremendous amounts of data processing. Your stored memories are all there. Sometimes they are easy to access and at other times, it takes some work to open certain file drawers in your brain.
Not all the memories are good of course. The science of NLP which stands for neuro-linguistic programming can help with changing what a memory means to you. It is certainly an area of study that you should consider. To start your pathway to a better use of your personal super computer, let’s talk about “how you talk to yourself.”
This is extremely important when it comes to having a positive mental image of yourself. When a person says that they cannot do something, often an image of failure accompanies that statement. They have stacked experiences of giving up, when the going got hard. In addition, they have added tags, just like the ones people use in social media. For example, you may have mental tags like these:
#toohard
#failure
#painful
#giveup
#neverwin
The list for some people could be very long. It wasn’t always that way. As children, we thought we could do anything, including fly. Years of negative conditioning, from family, friends, school and eventually ourselves…led us to the conclusion that sometimes it was just easier to give up.
When we hit our teenage years, this really kicked into overdrive and eventually the negative self-talk outweighs the positive things we say internally and occasionally out loud with conviction.
The negative self-talk has multiple consequences and must be dealt with. If you know people who suffer from lack of self-esteem, poor self-confidence and depression, then you are likely looking at someone who replays negatives conversations in their head daily. They use poor word choices like, “I can’t, I should have, and I could have been or done this.” Repetive negative self-talk, layers itself in the brain and one could compare it to a physical thing like artery plaque in the heart region. Both are dangerous and should be taken care of immediately.
In order to build your never give up attitude, you will need to change how you talk to yourself. When you do this, you will not only be unstoppable, but all the negative issues discussed, will start to dissolve. You will feel amazing and have superior confidence in all that you do. Finally those black clouds of depression will lift. A word of caution here, if your depression is a chemical imbalance, then you need to see professional advice.
You can start your can do attitude, by eliminating negative words from your vocabulary and replace them with positive sayings. Start by making a list of negative words you are aware float around in your head like garbage in the ocean. Both need to be cleaned up, or there will be severe consequences. Now draw a line through each negative word and write down a positive word beside it. This will be your new “go to” word.
Understand and accept that getting help is a good thing. Many people feel weak when seeking assistance. However going to groups that discuss positivity and success, can be very helpful for you. You will meet new people who are on the same journey. They too have decided that persistence and never ever, give up…is the way they want to lead their lives.
Listening to, or reading self-help books is something everyone should be doing and quite frankly, this should be taught in elementary schools and upwards. Using your car as a university is something motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar preached about all his life. He believed listening to the car radio was a time waster and that we should feed our minds with positive words daily. Drive to work and listen to Zig or another master of motivation, Les Brown. In 30 days, you will see a massive difference in the way you think.
For our purposes today, there is a recommended reading. Dr. Shad Helmstetter wrote an outstanding book entitled, “What to say when you talk to yourself.” In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Helmstetter gives you a new way to think about and talk to yourself. Here is an example of a phrase that if you repeated every night before bed, would have a significant effect on your overall self-esteem. “I know that what I believe about myself, is what I will become. So I believe in the best for myself.”
Here is how you stop tossing and turning while replaying negative conversations in your mind. Memorize, the phrase Dr. Helmstetter has put together and repeat it over and over until you drift off to sleep. When your mind tries to go back to negativity, tell it to stop and then continue to repeat the phrase. When you believe in the best for yourself, then you will go for it and quitting will not be an option.
To get the most out of the book, pick 5 to10 phrases that resonate with you. When you read those phrases, you get goosebumps or feel a little rush of adrenaline. Write those phrases out on index cards and then put them all around your house.
If you have a family, get them involved. Have 2-3 of these index cards taped to your fridge and tell your kids, before they can open the fridge, they must say each phrase once as if it is a magic key. Put one in your bedroom that you can read while getting dressed in the morning. Don’t forget where you spent a lot of alone time. Yes, the bathroom is a perfect place to put an index card. Read the index card over and over, instead of looking at the drama on your Facebook feed.
You should be getting really excited now. To get the most out of this eBook, you should read it more than once and put yourself into massive action. Let’s move into pain vs pleasure and how it drives your life.
How We Equate “Going For It” as Pain
It’s been said that people will do anything to avoid pain and will seek pleasure, even if they know in the long run, life is going to get more painful. Pain avoidance is something many people excel at. An example would be someone who believes they have a novel inside them. The idea keeps cropping up and begging to be written.
As person starts and stops the writing process, they give way to negative self-talk and then look for a comfort. That comfort might be laying on the couch and watching television all day because they have mentally told themselves,”Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better and I will really go for it. Maybe write 5K to 10K…just hammer it out.”
Tomorrow arrives and the thought of sitting in a chair seems to be painful, so they decide to get ready by having a nice hot coffee. Once the coffee is done, well there is a game show on, so better watch that and have a few laughs.
The procrastination they are doing is out of a belief that writing is going to be hard, really hard and they have to be 100% prepared. But they convince themselves they aren’t today, so perhaps they should go have a hamburger and fries. Substituting what they believe is pleasure-a hamburger and fries vs writing, is sadly the route the vast majority of people take.
We all love pleasure of any kind. It makes us feel good and drives away any sadness, even if only temporarily. With the advertising and the internet, people are even more persuaded to seek pleasure only. They see the successful people and believe there was no pain for those people to get where they are today. Their minds are filled with the best houses, the best cars and vacations to sunny beaches.
This is one reason why lotto tickets sales are in the billions. Many people convince themselves that they will win the lotto and then all their dreams come true. The opposite usually happens after a huge lotto win. In a short time the money is gone and perhaps even the people they loved, have disappeared.
A recent study showed that a notable amount of people were counting on a huge lotto win to fund their retirement. Instead of putting in the extra work and investing wisely, these people choose to play the lotto multiple times per week.
How do we stop this pain vs pleasure debate? The key thing is to re-label what pain is. There is physical pain and mental pain. When someone is in chronic pain, they tend to dwell on it and experience a great deal of depression. Learning to re-label physical pain, helps to cope with it. When a person understands that pain means they are still alive, with the opportunity to go for it and succeed, then it is possible for them to excel.
When you have a chronic disease and zero pain, it is likely because you have passed from this world. Pain tells us we are alive. There are many extreme sports fanatics that have learned to re-label pain and make it pleasure. There are mountain climbers with no legs and arms that convince themselves to scale some tough mountains. As the pain sets in, they equate it to pleasure because they are alive and headed to the top of the world, physically and mentally.
Mental pain needs to be re-labeled as well, in order to really develop the “no quit,” attitude. There are different types of mental pain associated with dropping procrastination and instead have a persistent drive. Here are the steps to take when you start to feel mental pain.
Step 1
Take a few calm moments to think about what is going on inside your head. Take deep even breaths and relax all your muscles. Now ask yourself what emotions you are feeling in that moment.
Step 2
Once you know the emotion, write it down on a piece of paper. Then see it as it is, a negative thought that disrupts you. Now pick a word that can replace the negative with a positive. Here are some examples. When you mentally say to yourself, “I fear doing this because……” replace with, “I’m feeling some anticipation right now and that means things are going to get good.”
When you say to yourself, “I feel pressure to do this,” replace it with, “I’ve got a task and I can chunk it, which makes it very doable.”
Every emotion you feel, you have control over. Instead of allowing negative thoughts about doing something because it takes you out of your comfort zone or you would rather doing some very pleasurable instead…you can change it. Make your word choices turn pain into the pleasure of going for it and being everything you ever wanted to be. The massive pleasure that you get at the end, is worth the effort of changing your task from a pain one to an inspiring thought of pleasure.
Another method to change from pain to pleasure, is breaking the habitual loop of pain memories in your brain. When you want to develop a “go for it,” attitude, you may be blocked if you have a number of memories you replay, that are focused on the number of times you quit.
Think of those memories as flash drives. Each flash drives has the time you quit school, quit three jobs in a row or constantly gave up on relationships the minute it got rough. Sit back and visualize that flashdrive and when you can picture it, mentally throw it into the air and blast it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Immediately think of a memory when you had something to do and you went for it 100% and remember exactly how you felt at that moment. Think of all the pleasure you got from yourself and those around you, who congratulated you on the massive success. If you have difficulty thinking of that one time, then think of something you wanted to succeed at and act as if it happened. Your brain is not able to tell the difference from a real event or one that you imagined.
If you find that hard to believe, then think of the times you put yourself into a deep state of fear, when you heard a noise. It may have just been a creaky board in a house but suddenly you were able to transform that noise into a killer with a knife. Remember how you got goosebumps and chills? That is you, creating a scene that your brain is believing to be true.
The big key to changing the negative CD in your head, is finding a technique that works for you. Experiment with this. If blasting the CD with a shotgun is not working, try dissolving the CD in a big vat of acid. Work on this until you find an image that helps you erase the CD and the memories it hold…permanently.
When you practice the blasting apart or erasing of old negative hurts, it will lead to that thought having little or no power over you. That means you are free to replace the thought with one that is positive and gives you pleasure.
Enjoying the Pleasure of the Journey to a Persistent Attitude
One of the biggest obstacles to having a persistent attitude, is believing everything should be easy. We constantly hear or read stories about people who have had massive success, however the reporting is slanted to only show the rewards of success. Frequently news reports leave out all the bumps in the road that sprang up in front of that successful person. This is turn, leads to a wrongful assumption in most people’s mind. They begin to believe success is easy and when it eludes them, it means they are not worthy and should not try anymore.
To be persistence and achieve success, you must change what your beliefs are. When you read a biography of a successful person, take note of what obstacles they faced and how they broke them down with a never quit attitude.
Just for a moment, sit back and think about this. How would life be if everything was extremely simple and you didn’t have to do anything to see success? If you really are sincere in your thoughts, you will realize that life would actually be very boring. Setting and achieving goals gives us huge pleasure but only if we had to knock down some hurdles to get there.
Obstacles make you stronger and add much pleasure to the end result. You look back and see how you smashed through those roadblocks… nothing could hold you back. Now you feel intense pleasure and are ready for a new challenge. To make your journey more pleasurable, let’s go over some ways to get the real juice out of life.
One man who excels in persistence, is former navy seal, David Goggins. His life story is incredible and worth reading about. Later in his navy seal life, he started training the people who were trying to enter the seal program and found that they were for the most part, big and tough…everywhere except between the ears. He resolved to change that and to make better participants for seal training.
What he learned to believe, is your need to grow your mental toughness. When you do this, it won’t be easy but you can take pleasure in a type of growth you may never experienced before. We all grow up and some of us exercise and do sports which helps our muscles grow. It is not easy but the rewards feel good. Mental toughness is no different. Here is how you can start building your mental toughness today.
1. Read the book, “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway,” by Susan Jeffers.
2. From that book, you will learn to do something uncomfortable everyday and do it, because it won’t kill you.
3. Some ideas are making 2-3 calls a day, if you are uncomfortable calling people, especially for work purposes, Susan gives you many ideas. Here is one you can try today. Go to a coffee shop and talk to everyone within three feet of you, if meeting new people makes you uncomfortable. You don’t even have to sell them anything, just get used to approaching people in a friendly manner.
Now that you have the idea, make a list of things that make you uncomfortable and do each one until you are fully comfortable. Be patient and do a chunk a day. Don’t try to pick up the phone and call 20 people to make an appointment, if cold calling terrifies you. Bit by bit, your mental toughness will strengthen, and you will be able to do thinks that you would have quit on before.
It also helps to give yourself a tiny reward each time you do an uncomfortable task. Make your 3 calls, have a cappuccino and listen to 15 minutes of your favorite band. These little rewards of pleasure, are enough to get your brain onboard with change. Don’t think that is difficult. You are not G. Gordon Liddy, who as a young boy, wanted to prove to himself that he was fearless. His idea? Find a rat, roast it and eat it and nothing else could possibly stop him in anything he wanted to do.
Think about something you have always wanted to do, but never started or did give it a shot but quickly gave up. The aim here is not to dwell on the failure, just to get a new starting point. For anything you want, you need to have an intense reason why. Just wanting to get a black belt in taekwondo because it is something that John at work did, or you love martial arts movies…is definitely a recipe for quitting before the end. No matter what it is you want to accomplish, think about it and write it down. Then list 5 reasons why you want to do this. Each reason should move you to the point, that just thinking about it gets you excited.
Next up, decide how long it will take to get that black belt, write that novella or get the supervisors job you have always dreamed of. Yes, there are steps to getting promotions. You need to really look into that, because it rarely happens just because you have a pleasing personality.
For our example, let’s look at writing a novella. Writing a novella or any size book for Amazon Kindle is very popular. However, if you are thinking of doing it just for the money, it is not likely going to work. You need some big reasons to put in that effort.
Most people who attempt to write a novella or other type of short read, have heard they are popular these days. They put in a day or two and after looking at the page or two that they came up with, they quit. Writing isn’t easy. But it can be a pleasurable and rewarding experience if you do it right.
You need to chunk your writing. Start by writing out your idea and the main characters. The next day, come up with chapter sizes and lengths. You would continue on this path until you had everything fleshed out and are ready to write the first sentence. This time around, you won’t quit, because you are going to reward yourself. This is a way to trick your brain into cooperating with you. Doing it the normal way, gives your brain the opportunity to whine about it being too hard. Your brain wants you to have fun and loads of pleasure. This is where rewards come in. For each section you chunk, write down what your reward will be when you finish. It can be something simple like a really hot bath with candles and a glass of wine or delaying the movie you are dying to see, until you are ready for your first reward.
Go down through your list now and put in your simple but pleasurable rewards. When you have done that, write in big letters at the end, “Once I have completed my 13K novella in 3 months, I will reward myself with dinner for two at this amazing restaurant.”
You can make your journey to a persistence mental attitude fun and full of pleasure. It is also a good idea to write a daily journal entry and showcase your growth. You can refer back to it, just to see how far you’ve come and take pleasure in the ride.
Successful People Understand Patience is a Key Habit. Top Tips for Learning Patience
You want to go for it. Your big dream is right there in front of your eyes but you keep dropping the ball. Frustration might be your middle name. If any of this, is sounding like what you go through frequently, the reason might be something other than you think.
Yes, we do sabotage our success through a variety of ways, yet many would not name patience as one of the issues. The truth is, the road is rough and if you constantly swerve, speed up, slow down and then hit the brakes…then you need to work on your patience. Here are tips you can start today, that will help you understand what is going on in your head and how to chill when the going gets tough.
1. Getting physically active when things aren’t going right will help you a lot. Yes, you can get into the rough sports but one of the best things for patience, is to learn Tai chi. you can simply buy a DVD or go to YouTube. There are several reasons why Tai chi should be on your list of possibities. Tai chi is martial arts in slow motion.
Many people are not aware that if you speed up the movements, this is a true martial art for protection. By slowing it down to a crawl, you concentrate on each move and exactly how you are breathing. Your blood pressure will lower and a complete sense of calmness will come over you. After your session, you relax and at look the problem you were facing with fresh eyes. New ways to reach that big goal will come to you and the idea of quitting will fade away.
2. Keeping a journal for a variety of things in your life is a great idea. You can journal your path to achieving your goals and see where the roadblocks popped up and how to avoid them in the future. Keeping a patience journal or diary will help you understand how you lose your patience and what things upset you the most and how quickly. Understanding this, is key to learning not to get upset and staying calm in the eye of the storm.
3. Spend some time calmly thinking about how great things take time. You cannot rush, you need your plan, some action, add in adjustment, and then go forward. Think about those beautiful fruit trees you see in someone’s yard. They are now full with pears, peaches or beautiful apples. That didn’t happen overnight. The tree was small at first and survived wind and rain storms…perhaps even freezing winter conditions. Yet it was patient and resilient, growing to 15 feet or more. Take your time and good things will come to you.
4. Deep breathing is often overlooked. When you lose patience, your blood pressure and heart rate will start to rise. When this starts to happen, say “Stop,” loudly in your head. Start to take in air deep into your lungs and hold it for 5 seconds before slowly expelling it. Think of your stress, as being small particles that are now being pushed out of your lungs and away from you forever. Keep doing this until you feel calm and ready to begin again.
5. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Sometimes when we lose patience, it is for a very silly reason and then we build it up, until it becomes a hot burning furnace inside us. Be aware of your emotions at all times. When you feel yourself starting to lose patience with what you are doing or someone is trying to block your success, take a break. Go to a room by yourself and watch 15 to 20 minutes of comedy. Pick something you know is guaranteed to make you laugh even if you have seen it multiple times. Yes, you can be your own doctor and your prescription is laughter.
Persistent and Patience Will Help You Achieve Your Goals Step by Step
Do you know anyone who sets one year, two year or even five year goals? If you do, you’re probably going to find that their success rate is not that high. Think about employers who ask, “Where do you see yourself in five year’s time?” Most people just make something up and hope it sounds good to the interviewer’s ears. The truth is, the vast majority of people only have a vague idea of where they will be in five years and they don’t have a concrete path.
It is recommended that you set 90 days and at the end of 90 days, re-write them, adjusting what needs work. When you set yearly goals, like many do starting January 1st, it doesn’t take long before you change course or get frustrated and quit. When you do 90-day goals, your chances for success skyrocket.
Year long goals tend not to be super specific with laser focus. They are more of what you want, rather than what you are going to do and be, without procrastination. The reason you are far more focused, is the way you set your 90 days goals. You chunk it into 30 days, 60 and finally 90 days. You may end up tweaking those goals as you work through them and for sure, you review the whole thing at the end of 30 days.
When you are setting your goals, the first thing that comes to your mind, is the short time period. Instead of a year, you see 30 days and your brain clicks that it is very doable and you won’t get bored. The problem with year long goals, is right off the bat, it seems so far away and as you start slugging away at it-your brain begins to tell you, “This is going to take forever.” You start to lose patience, that the rewards are so far away, they are almost impossible to see. So like many people, you end up quitting.
When you write down your personal, business and even financial goals, have a reward in mind for the end of the 30 days. Having something special to work towards, can boost your chances of success. However you need to set measurable goals, so if you don’t meet them, then you cannot reward yourself and you know in the next 30 day set, what kept you from meeting your goals.
Now you can tweak and adjust what needs to be done. Think of goal lengths as a hurdle on a track. With 90 day goals, you only have 3 hurdles, instead of 12 with a year long goal set. You won’t quit because you can see the finish line clearly and with patience, you can clear each hurdle with room to spare.
Modeling Successful People-Follow How Some People Succeeded Against All Odds
Do you aspire to something lofty in life, yet have difficulty with having a persistent drive? If that is the case, modeling someone else who suffered setbacks but would not quit…is the optimum way to succeed. The best idea is to find someone who lives near you and spend time with them. Find out how they think and how they react to situations that might make you want to quit. When you are unable to model someone in person, then do some research and find someone whose story resonates with you. Learn everything you can about them. Read biographies on their lives, watch documentaries, and google every story about them.
Make sure to print those stories out and study them. In your research, you will learn how these people chose not to be defeated by adversity and developed an, “I will not quit,” attitude.
To give you a head start, we will go over the lives of 7 people, who had every reason to quit but did not. This will give you inspiration to model one of them or continue to research and find your absolute match.
Jack Ma- Everyone has heard of Amazon. What about Alibaba? If that doesn’t ring any bells, then you need to look up Jack Ma. He is every bit as successful as Jeff Bezos. His never give up attitude has made him a billionaire. In Jack’s case, it shows that intelligence has less to do with success, than persistence does. Jack grew up extremely poor and first made money by working in the tourist trade. It was a rough go so he wanted to go to school but failed his college exams twice. He couldn’t even get a job at KFC. In the end, Jack was able to get into teachers college and began teaching. He wanted more, so he moved to the United States to learn computers. Jack puts persistence first and when he sets his mind, he never gives up. He saw a need and created his own company building it to great heights.
James Dyson- Just like Edison and the lightbulb, James failed many times in his attempt to build a new style of vacuum. James wanted a vacuum with no bag and excellent power. He attempted to make his Dual Cyclone vacuum approximately 5,126 times before he actually hit the magic formula. It took 15 long years and he became a success story and is now referred to as Sir James Dyson due to his achievements. His story is one that should truly inspire you. Think about when you would have quit. Would you give an idea you were passionate about, 25, 50 or more chances? After reading this eBook and going on a new journey to ultimate persistence, your answer will be, “I would never give up, no matter how many years it took me.”
Stephen King- This one probably surprised you. Most people believe that Stephen was a success right out of the gate. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Stephen was writing and trying to publish at a very young age. In fact, by the time he was 14, the rejection letters he had received were on a nail in the wall and the weight was so much, the nail fell out. Stephen persisted and yes he did give up at first, on his breakthrough novel called, “Carrie.” He got frustrated and threw it in the trashcan but his wife, also a writer, pulled out it and told him it was a good novel. The novel, “Carrie,” was rejected 22 times after that and eventually was the rocket to Stephen’s long and successful career.
Nick Vujicic- is a very successful motivational speaker and evangelist. He was born without arms and legs, which made life very difficult for him and his parents. Nick suffered from bullying and depression early in his life and tried to kill himself. He survived the attempt and decided to change his life. A talk with a janitor in his school, gave him the courage to go out and motivate people to overcome any obstacle in their lives and persist in living the best life possible. Many thought it would be impossible for Nick to find love due to his appearance. That was not the case and he not only married but currently has four children. Nick shows us, that no matter what the circumstances, if you are willing to push forward and not quit…no matter what, you can be truly successful in whatever you choose to do.
Jack Canfield- Jack is one of the best known writers and motivational experts out there. His books, “Chicken Soup for______,” sell millions of copies. There are currently 200 plus titles in the series, which focuses on giving comfort to those who are struggling in an area of their lives and stories show that any obstacle can be overcome. Jack and his partner were surprised at how difficult it was to sell the original book. It was taken to traditional publishers approximately 200 times and rejected. Their agent explained that due to the concept of the book, they would have to have at least 20,000 already willing to buy it, if published. The idea of giving up, was one they dismissed and they found 20,000 people interested in their 1st comfort book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” They eventually found a publisher and the series took off. Along the way, they have tweaked the books and try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they live or what their economic status is. They persevered and are legends in non-fiction books.
Jim Carrey- Jim became one of the most successful actors ever. His story is one of extreme struggle and finally success. Growing up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Jim’s family suffered a financial loss, which included their home. Jim was around 15 and ended up taking a job as a janitor to help out, while the family lived out of their van. It was not the life he wanted and he was very angry about what had happened to the family. Jim decided to try standup comedy and was booed off the stage during his first attempt. He pumped himself up and continued to try, even moving at a young age to Los Angeles. It was a constant struggle and one night he found himself driving around. He stopped his car under the Hollywood sign and wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars. Jim never thought small and he carried it in his wallet until he received a $10 million dollar check for one of his movies.
Think how most teens would have reacted at having to take a job as janitor. Would you buckle down and create your dream lifestyle? You can, when you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude.
Bethany Hamilton- The mindset of Bethany Hamilton is just astounding. Growing up in Hawaii, she was in the water all the time and became a competitive surfer. Tragedy struck when she was attacked by a shark and lost her left arm. She resolved not to quit on herself and within 26 days was back on her surfboard. This is amazing considering how she would have to convince her brain, the odds of a second shark attack were beyond computing. Not only did she put aside any fears of another attack, she had to relearn how to properly balance herself on a board. With one arm gone, her balance was completely off, as surfers use their arms in the way a high wire walker uses a pole to stabilize themselves. Bethany conquered two issues in amazing fashion and she is a person to look to, when modeling a persistent attitude.
Bonus Section
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE
Having children means so many things. You bring them up and try to instill values and beliefs that will help them become wonderful people. Frequently, you are up early in the morning, for soccer, baseball or hockey games, as children need these for exercise and social skills. What about those music lessons? Perhaps you need to head to another room as your child is flaying away at the violin. One skill that many parents neglect to teach their children, is perseverance. Unless your parents taught you some lessons in that area, you probably don’t even consider what a wonderful skill it is for your child. By teaching them perseverance, you are setting them up for success in their personal and work life.
Think about it for a moment. How many people struggle at staying in a relationship and often give up quickly in a marriage. Many times, it is because they were not taught how to adjust to rough patches and being persistent in making things work. Marriage is work, there is no doubt about it and people need the skills to cope with adversity.
Start teaching your children persistence skills today and even you can benefit from the experience. Here are some ideas to put into practice now:
1. If allowed, children will play video games all day. While there are some benefits to video gaming, it is a past-time that should be limited. To have a well-rounded child who can flex their persistence muscles, give them new things to try on a frequent basis. It should be something you can do with them, so that they can see you fail, get up and dust yourself off and do it again. Martial classes such as taekwondo are perfect for this.
The patterns which are intricate take time to learn and you can buy DVD’s to watch and use at home, after class. Both you and your child can go from white belt to black belt together. Make a list of other skills you could practice together. Examples such as “How to Tie 10 Different types of Rope Knots, or Making Art From Recycled Parts.,” are possibilities. In rope tying, you learn to tie knots that can be used in camping, hiking and can even help in rescue situations. With making art from recycled parts, you teach your child, not only a skill but environmental issues as well. Each of these skills, won’t be learned overnight and failure, then success through persistence prevails.
2. Spend time sharing failures and successes with them. Go over some of yours and also use examples from around the world. This shows them over time, that life has ups and downs but through perseverance, one can succeed. Use examples of children who had an extremely hard time in mathematics but persistence in learning the skill, landed them a career in that field.
3. Like a sailboat on the ocean with heavy winds, sometimes you need to adjust. When the skill the child is trying to learn, is proving to be too difficult, make it slightly easier until they grasp it. On the other hand, if you notice they are succeeded too quickly to learn from it, then make the degree of difficulty a bit harder.
By planning out and putting your ideas into action, you can greatly help your child with skills that will make them mentally and physically tougher. Make no mistake, this is a tough old world and the better you prepare your children, the much better their success rate.
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE
Having a family is a blessing. It does come with many issues and if these are not dealt with early, then it is possible for a family to implode. Families with children and pets, have serious obligations. By using patience and persistence with each other, this can trickle down to the children/pets. There are so many things that need to be done in a household and one or both spouses sometimes require gentle reminders to get things done. It is when the reminders turn to nagging or outright fights, that rebellion takes place.
From the beginning, learn to explain why a certain task must be done at this point in time. Having reasons other than, “because I told you to,” will go a long ways in gaining cooperation. When a spouse has really bad habits such as overspending, sit down and patiently explain household budgeting as a team. Perhaps even writing family goals and doing family vision boards can be an added benefit to getting the message across. When a spouse understands that overspending is causing stress and taking away what might be a huge benefit, like a desired vacation…it is easier to gain trust and cooperation.
Children see and hear everything. This means that the practice you do, in being very patient with a spousal issue, the child models this in their home and school life. However it is possible that a child may need coaching in this and if both parents are onboard, this makes the task easier. It is not always easy to understand what a child goes through with their friends and school mates. It is possible that the outer influence means you have to step it up in regards to being persistent with lots of love. Children respond much better if given reasons instead being told that they must do something now. In addition, framing the question, so that it sounds like they have a say in the matter, makes them feel much more appreciated and worthy.
With regards to pets, training is a full time job when they are small. Again children model, so if they see a parent getting upset and punishing the pet, they may take it the wrong way. To avoid having your children being aggressive with the family pet, let them see you gently coaching the behavior you desire in the household.
Family life should be fun and full of love. When you practice the art of patience, combined with gentle persistence, your family life will something others will want to model.
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS
Hopefully you are not under the assumption that being an entrepreneur is easy.
Too many people look at Richard Branson and see the lifestyle he has today. Yes he owns Virgin Mobile and many other companies, which gives him the finances to own an island and go para-sailing with beautiful models. Yet, he had to be persistent in growing his business, just like anyone else.
Working for yourself has many wonderful perks, but be aware, you are responsible for everything. Once you get to the point that assistants are a viable thing, then creating, marketing and even the dull stuff like accounting are all in your hands. To be persistent and never give up on your entrepreneur dreams, here are 5 hot tips to get you in the right direction.
1. In business, the word, “No,” doesn’t have the same meaning as if you were invading someone’s personal space. It just means, “I’m not interested in this time, because you haven’t shown me enough benefits for me to say, “Yes.” To excel, don’t take the word “No,” personally. Instead, just say thank you and come back with an improved offer.
Getting frustrated is absurd. Stay calm and think about the situation, perhaps even do some visualization to allow your brain to find more solutions and benefits to your proposed customer. Cold calling sales people hear the word, “No,” everyday of their life. The biggest and the best make wonderful money because they persist, when they hear that negative word. It means try harder to them, it does not mean quit.
2. Avoid waiting until your product is perfect in your eyes. Put your best effort forth and be persistent about getting it out to the masses. Then be patient and tweak the product based on feedback. Do not give up on producing the best work you can. In internet marketing for instance, having as many “buy,” buttons up as is feasible, will give you the income you need to continue. You should then tweak, to make your products a gem.
Many people give up on internet marketing, without ever getting a single buy button up. The truly sad part is, many of these people spend one or more years…telling themselves they need to learn more before they can put out a product. Be flexible, learn from your mistakes and be persistent in getting products out to those who need what you have to offer.
3. Les Brown says it best, “You gotta be hungry.” Les was labeled as someone who could not be educated very early in the school system. At first he believed it, until a teacher told him not to and then coached him on how to respond if he wanted to succeed. Les wanted to be a DJ, which was a really cool thing back in his day.
All he could find was janitor work in a radio station. But he was hungry…hungry for success and would do anything except quit. He decided to watch the DJ’s while they worked and learned all the controls of the DJ booth. One night by accident, he was able to jump on the radio and his career took off. Les believes you should be hungry for knowledge, for life skills and of course for success. As an entrepreneur, you should always stay hungry for the next opportunity and never give up on making things happen. Remember that nothing will be handed to you, it is up to you to earn it by being persistent and going for it all the time.
4. As an entrepreneur, you will have wonderful ideas. Perhaps some of the things you visualize in your head, could help change the world. That won’t happen if they stay in your head. Someone else will put the product or idea out there. Every great idea in the world does not come to just one person. Even Charles Darwin had someone else who was onto the idea of evolution.
The same goes for the discovery of electricity. Many people have sat back, only to see the idea they thought was theirs and theirs alone, come to the market. They hesitated. If they had taken action, been persistent in bringing their product out, they could have changed their life. Regret is a terrible thing and since you are now an action person with zero quit, this is your time.
5. We all have only so many days on earth. Decide today, that you are committed to stay with your entrepreneurship for life. Never say that you will give it a shot for perhaps 5 years and if it doesn’t work out, perhaps you will go back to school. Once your mind understands that you live and breathe
entrepreneurship and will until your final day…it will come onboard and assist you. Look to those from history who had a vision and would not give up no matter what. The general Hannibal is one that you can learn from. To conquer his foes, he had to take his warrior elephants across the Alps. There were no roads. His motto was, “We will either find a way or make one.” An entrepreneur who has the mindset of Hannibal, will always succeed.
The Power of A “Never Give Up” Attitude
[BRANDING]
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
SILENCING THE NEGATIVE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD 6
HOW WE EQUATE “GOING FOR IT” AS PAIN 10
ENJOYING THE PLEASURE OF THE JOURNEY TO A PERSISTENT ATTITUDE 15
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND PATIENCE IS A KEY HABIT. TOP TIPS FOR LEARNING PATIENCE 20
PERSISTENT AND PATIENCE WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS STEP BY STEP 23
MODELING SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE-FOLLOW HOW SOME PEOPLE SUCCEEDED AGAINST ALL ODDS. 25
BONUS SECTION 30
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE 30
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE 33
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS 35
INTRODUCTION
As advanced as we are, humans still need to build good habits and let go of the bad ones. Persistence is a habit which like a muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In the animal kingdom, persistence comes naturally.
One only has to think of the honey badger, to see persistence in constant action. This small animal is fearless. It will fight a lion and not back down. When it comes to food, the honey badger has no equal. It will eat anything including venomous snakes. Honey badgers are basically immune to snake venom but they sometimes do get such a dose, that it knocks them out for a few minutes. Once they awaken, it is off to find another snake. They will dig right into a honeybee nest and take on the angry bees to get their honey fix. When it comes to food and fighting, the honey badger gets an A+ in persistence.
The persistence drive in humans has declined over the years. People will find a multitude of reasons to quit any endeavor the moment it gets difficult. They want success but are unwilling to put in the work and stick to a game plan.
There are a number of factors that can be considered, when trying to understand the “it will just be easier to quit,” attitude. As children are raised in a hectic world today, some parents find that they would rather allow their children to give up on certain things, rather than be patient and persistent in teaching them how to win at life. Once a child sees that being aggressively resistant towards a task, allows them the chance to do something more pleasurable, they will build upon that.
As adults of any age will find, the ability to focus on a goal or plan can be difficult. This is due to the high pace world we now live in. Giving up is starting to become the normal thing to do, once a roadblock appears. For most people it far easier to say, “This is too hard, this is too stressful, I cannot do it.” Once they convince themselves that giving up is the way to go, it now becomes the easy way out for anything they do in life. When a relationship becomes difficult, they have already built a neural pathway in their brain…that is the highway to giving up without much of a fight. Everything we do, creates neural pathways and we strengthen those pathways with repetition.
Look around you. When you see successful people, are they smartest people in the room? Frequently the answer is no. Smart people can get frustrated and give up, just like anyone else. If you really dig deep and even ask some questions, you find the successful people are the ones with the biggest persistence muscle. They were either born with or learned the ability of going forward no matter what life throws at them. In this eBook, the aim is to teach you how to be extremely persistent, while being patient at the same time. Your ultimate growth will come from this.
The goal of this eBook, is to give you a new way of thinking. We will show you how to break the negative pathways in your brain and build new strong positive pathways. In addition, we will cover why it is so important for your success in life, to full understand and implement the idea of having a powerful, never give up no matter what attitude. Following this eBook will greatly improve your chances of having a very successful life.
Silencing the Negative Voice in Your Head
Everyone has the same super computer available. Your brain is a marvelous bit of engineering and capable of tremendous amounts of data processing. Your stored memories are all there. Sometimes they are easy to access and at other times, it takes some work to open certain file drawers in your brain.
Not all the memories are good of course. The science of NLP which stands for neuro-linguistic programming can help with changing what a memory means to you. It is certainly an area of study that you should consider. To start your pathway to a better use of your personal super computer, let’s talk about “how you talk to yourself.”
This is extremely important when it comes to having a positive mental image of yourself. When a person says that they cannot do something, often an image of failure accompanies that statement. They have stacked experiences of giving up, when the going got hard. In addition, they have added tags, just like the ones people use in social media. For example, you may have mental tags like these:
#toohard
#failure
#painful
#giveup
#neverwin
The list for some people could be very long. It wasn’t always that way. As children, we thought we could do anything, including fly. Years of negative conditioning, from family, friends, school and eventually ourselves…led us to the conclusion that sometimes it was just easier to give up.
When we hit our teenage years, this really kicked into overdrive and eventually the negative self-talk outweighs the positive things we say internally and occasionally out loud with conviction.
The negative self-talk has multiple consequences and must be dealt with. If you know people who suffer from lack of self-esteem, poor self-confidence and depression, then you are likely looking at someone who replays negatives conversations in their head daily. They use poor word choices like, “I can’t, I should have, and I could have been or done this.” Repetive negative self-talk, layers itself in the brain and one could compare it to a physical thing like artery plaque in the heart region. Both are dangerous and should be taken care of immediately.
In order to build your never give up attitude, you will need to change how you talk to yourself. When you do this, you will not only be unstoppable, but all the negative issues discussed, will start to dissolve. You will feel amazing and have superior confidence in all that you do. Finally those black clouds of depression will lift. A word of caution here, if your depression is a chemical imbalance, then you need to see professional advice.
You can start your can do attitude, by eliminating negative words from your vocabulary and replace them with positive sayings. Start by making a list of negative words you are aware float around in your head like garbage in the ocean. Both need to be cleaned up, or there will be severe consequences. Now draw a line through each negative word and write down a positive word beside it. This will be your new “go to” word.
Understand and accept that getting help is a good thing. Many people feel weak when seeking assistance. However going to groups that discuss positivity and success, can be very helpful for you. You will meet new people who are on the same journey. They too have decided that persistence and never ever, give up…is the way they want to lead their lives.
Listening to, or reading self-help books is something everyone should be doing and quite frankly, this should be taught in elementary schools and upwards. Using your car as a university is something motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar preached about all his life. He believed listening to the car radio was a time waster and that we should feed our minds with positive words daily. Drive to work and listen to Zig or another master of motivation, Les Brown. In 30 days, you will see a massive difference in the way you think.
For our purposes today, there is a recommended reading. Dr. Shad Helmstetter wrote an outstanding book entitled, “What to say when you talk to yourself.” In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Helmstetter gives you a new way to think about and talk to yourself. Here is an example of a phrase that if you repeated every night before bed, would have a significant effect on your overall self-esteem. “I know that what I believe about myself, is what I will become. So I believe in the best for myself.”
Here is how you stop tossing and turning while replaying negative conversations in your mind. Memorize, the phrase Dr. Helmstetter has put together and repeat it over and over until you drift off to sleep. When your mind tries to go back to negativity, tell it to stop and then continue to repeat the phrase. When you believe in the best for yourself, then you will go for it and quitting will not be an option.
To get the most out of the book, pick 5 to10 phrases that resonate with you. When you read those phrases, you get goosebumps or feel a little rush of adrenaline. Write those phrases out on index cards and then put them all around your house.
If you have a family, get them involved. Have 2-3 of these index cards taped to your fridge and tell your kids, before they can open the fridge, they must say each phrase once as if it is a magic key. Put one in your bedroom that you can read while getting dressed in the morning. Don’t forget where you spent a lot of alone time. Yes, the bathroom is a perfect place to put an index card. Read the index card over and over, instead of looking at the drama on your Facebook feed.
You should be getting really excited now. To get the most out of this eBook, you should read it more than once and put yourself into massive action. Let’s move into pain vs pleasure and how it drives your life.
How We Equate “Going For It” as Pain
It’s been said that people will do anything to avoid pain and will seek pleasure, even if they know in the long run, life is going to get more painful. Pain avoidance is something many people excel at. An example would be someone who believes they have a novel inside them. The idea keeps cropping up and begging to be written.
As person starts and stops the writing process, they give way to negative self-talk and then look for a comfort. That comfort might be laying on the couch and watching television all day because they have mentally told themselves,”Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better and I will really go for it. Maybe write 5K to 10K…just hammer it out.”
Tomorrow arrives and the thought of sitting in a chair seems to be painful, so they decide to get ready by having a nice hot coffee. Once the coffee is done, well there is a game show on, so better watch that and have a few laughs.
The procrastination they are doing is out of a belief that writing is going to be hard, really hard and they have to be 100% prepared. But they convince themselves they aren’t today, so perhaps they should go have a hamburger and fries. Substituting what they believe is pleasure-a hamburger and fries vs writing, is sadly the route the vast majority of people take.
We all love pleasure of any kind. It makes us feel good and drives away any sadness, even if only temporarily. With the advertising and the internet, people are even more persuaded to seek pleasure only. They see the successful people and believe there was no pain for those people to get where they are today. Their minds are filled with the best houses, the best cars and vacations to sunny beaches.
This is one reason why lotto tickets sales are in the billions. Many people convince themselves that they will win the lotto and then all their dreams come true. The opposite usually happens after a huge lotto win. In a short time the money is gone and perhaps even the people they loved, have disappeared.
A recent study showed that a notable amount of people were counting on a huge lotto win to fund their retirement. Instead of putting in the extra work and investing wisely, these people choose to play the lotto multiple times per week.
How do we stop this pain vs pleasure debate? The key thing is to re-label what pain is. There is physical pain and mental pain. When someone is in chronic pain, they tend to dwell on it and experience a great deal of depression. Learning to re-label physical pain, helps to cope with it. When a person understands that pain means they are still alive, with the opportunity to go for it and succeed, then it is possible for them to excel.
When you have a chronic disease and zero pain, it is likely because you have passed from this world. Pain tells us we are alive. There are many extreme sports fanatics that have learned to re-label pain and make it pleasure. There are mountain climbers with no legs and arms that convince themselves to scale some tough mountains. As the pain sets in, they equate it to pleasure because they are alive and headed to the top of the world, physically and mentally.
Mental pain needs to be re-labeled as well, in order to really develop the “no quit,” attitude. There are different types of mental pain associated with dropping procrastination and instead have a persistent drive. Here are the steps to take when you start to feel mental pain.
Step 1
Take a few calm moments to think about what is going on inside your head. Take deep even breaths and relax all your muscles. Now ask yourself what emotions you are feeling in that moment.
Step 2
Once you know the emotion, write it down on a piece of paper. Then see it as it is, a negative thought that disrupts you. Now pick a word that can replace the negative with a positive. Here are some examples. When you mentally say to yourself, “I fear doing this because……” replace with, “I’m feeling some anticipation right now and that means things are going to get good.”
When you say to yourself, “I feel pressure to do this,” replace it with, “I’ve got a task and I can chunk it, which makes it very doable.”
Every emotion you feel, you have control over. Instead of allowing negative thoughts about doing something because it takes you out of your comfort zone or you would rather doing some very pleasurable instead…you can change it. Make your word choices turn pain into the pleasure of going for it and being everything you ever wanted to be. The massive pleasure that you get at the end, is worth the effort of changing your task from a pain one to an inspiring thought of pleasure.
Another method to change from pain to pleasure, is breaking the habitual loop of pain memories in your brain. When you want to develop a “go for it,” attitude, you may be blocked if you have a number of memories you replay, that are focused on the number of times you quit.
Think of those memories as flash drives. Each flash drives has the time you quit school, quit three jobs in a row or constantly gave up on relationships the minute it got rough. Sit back and visualize that flashdrive and when you can picture it, mentally throw it into the air and blast it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Immediately think of a memory when you had something to do and you went for it 100% and remember exactly how you felt at that moment. Think of all the pleasure you got from yourself and those around you, who congratulated you on the massive success. If you have difficulty thinking of that one time, then think of something you wanted to succeed at and act as if it happened. Your brain is not able to tell the difference from a real event or one that you imagined.
If you find that hard to believe, then think of the times you put yourself into a deep state of fear, when you heard a noise. It may have just been a creaky board in a house but suddenly you were able to transform that noise into a killer with a knife. Remember how you got goosebumps and chills? That is you, creating a scene that your brain is believing to be true.
The big key to changing the negative CD in your head, is finding a technique that works for you. Experiment with this. If blasting the CD with a shotgun is not working, try dissolving the CD in a big vat of acid. Work on this until you find an image that helps you erase the CD and the memories it hold…permanently.
When you practice the blasting apart or erasing of old negative hurts, it will lead to that thought having little or no power over you. That means you are free to replace the thought with one that is positive and gives you pleasure.
Enjoying the Pleasure of the Journey to a Persistent Attitude
One of the biggest obstacles to having a persistent attitude, is believing everything should be easy. We constantly hear or read stories about people who have had massive success, however the reporting is slanted to only show the rewards of success. Frequently news reports leave out all the bumps in the road that sprang up in front of that successful person. This is turn, leads to a wrongful assumption in most people’s mind. They begin to believe success is easy and when it eludes them, it means they are not worthy and should not try anymore.
To be persistence and achieve success, you must change what your beliefs are. When you read a biography of a successful person, take note of what obstacles they faced and how they broke them down with a never quit attitude.
Just for a moment, sit back and think about this. How would life be if everything was extremely simple and you didn’t have to do anything to see success? If you really are sincere in your thoughts, you will realize that life would actually be very boring. Setting and achieving goals gives us huge pleasure but only if we had to knock down some hurdles to get there.
Obstacles make you stronger and add much pleasure to the end result. You look back and see how you smashed through those roadblocks… nothing could hold you back. Now you feel intense pleasure and are ready for a new challenge. To make your journey more pleasurable, let’s go over some ways to get the real juice out of life.
One man who excels in persistence, is former navy seal, David Goggins. His life story is incredible and worth reading about. Later in his navy seal life, he started training the people who were trying to enter the seal program and found that they were for the most part, big and tough…everywhere except between the ears. He resolved to change that and to make better participants for seal training.
What he learned to believe, is your need to grow your mental toughness. When you do this, it won’t be easy but you can take pleasure in a type of growth you may never experienced before. We all grow up and some of us exercise and do sports which helps our muscles grow. It is not easy but the rewards feel good. Mental toughness is no different. Here is how you can start building your mental toughness today.
1. Read the book, “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway,” by Susan Jeffers.
2. From that book, you will learn to do something uncomfortable everyday and do it, because it won’t kill you.
3. Some ideas are making 2-3 calls a day, if you are uncomfortable calling people, especially for work purposes, Susan gives you many ideas. Here is one you can try today. Go to a coffee shop and talk to everyone within three feet of you, if meeting new people makes you uncomfortable. You don’t even have to sell them anything, just get used to approaching people in a friendly manner.
Now that you have the idea, make a list of things that make you uncomfortable and do each one until you are fully comfortable. Be patient and do a chunk a day. Don’t try to pick up the phone and call 20 people to make an appointment, if cold calling terrifies you. Bit by bit, your mental toughness will strengthen, and you will be able to do thinks that you would have quit on before.
It also helps to give yourself a tiny reward each time you do an uncomfortable task. Make your 3 calls, have a cappuccino and listen to 15 minutes of your favorite band. These little rewards of pleasure, are enough to get your brain onboard with change. Don’t think that is difficult. You are not G. Gordon Liddy, who as a young boy, wanted to prove to himself that he was fearless. His idea? Find a rat, roast it and eat it and nothing else could possibly stop him in anything he wanted to do.
Think about something you have always wanted to do, but never started or did give it a shot but quickly gave up. The aim here is not to dwell on the failure, just to get a new starting point. For anything you want, you need to have an intense reason why. Just wanting to get a black belt in taekwondo because it is something that John at work did, or you love martial arts movies…is definitely a recipe for quitting before the end. No matter what it is you want to accomplish, think about it and write it down. Then list 5 reasons why you want to do this. Each reason should move you to the point, that just thinking about it gets you excited.
Next up, decide how long it will take to get that black belt, write that novella or get the supervisors job you have always dreamed of. Yes, there are steps to getting promotions. You need to really look into that, because it rarely happens just because you have a pleasing personality.
For our example, let’s look at writing a novella. Writing a novella or any size book for Amazon Kindle is very popular. However, if you are thinking of doing it just for the money, it is not likely going to work. You need some big reasons to put in that effort.
Most people who attempt to write a novella or other type of short read, have heard they are popular these days. They put in a day or two and after looking at the page or two that they came up with, they quit. Writing isn’t easy. But it can be a pleasurable and rewarding experience if you do it right.
You need to chunk your writing. Start by writing out your idea and the main characters. The next day, come up with chapter sizes and lengths. You would continue on this path until you had everything fleshed out and are ready to write the first sentence. This time around, you won’t quit, because you are going to reward yourself. This is a way to trick your brain into cooperating with you. Doing it the normal way, gives your brain the opportunity to whine about it being too hard. Your brain wants you to have fun and loads of pleasure. This is where rewards come in. For each section you chunk, write down what your reward will be when you finish. It can be something simple like a really hot bath with candles and a glass of wine or delaying the movie you are dying to see, until you are ready for your first reward.
Go down through your list now and put in your simple but pleasurable rewards. When you have done that, write in big letters at the end, “Once I have completed my 13K novella in 3 months, I will reward myself with dinner for two at this amazing restaurant.”
You can make your journey to a persistence mental attitude fun and full of pleasure. It is also a good idea to write a daily journal entry and showcase your growth. You can refer back to it, just to see how far you’ve come and take pleasure in the ride.
Successful People Understand Patience is a Key Habit. Top Tips for Learning Patience
You want to go for it. Your big dream is right there in front of your eyes but you keep dropping the ball. Frustration might be your middle name. If any of this, is sounding like what you go through frequently, the reason might be something other than you think.
Yes, we do sabotage our success through a variety of ways, yet many would not name patience as one of the issues. The truth is, the road is rough and if you constantly swerve, speed up, slow down and then hit the brakes…then you need to work on your patience. Here are tips you can start today, that will help you understand what is going on in your head and how to chill when the going gets tough.
1. Getting physically active when things aren’t going right will help you a lot. Yes, you can get into the rough sports but one of the best things for patience, is to learn Tai chi. you can simply buy a DVD or go to YouTube. There are several reasons why Tai chi should be on your list of possibities. Tai chi is martial arts in slow motion.
Many people are not aware that if you speed up the movements, this is a true martial art for protection. By slowing it down to a crawl, you concentrate on each move and exactly how you are breathing. Your blood pressure will lower and a complete sense of calmness will come over you. After your session, you relax and at look the problem you were facing with fresh eyes. New ways to reach that big goal will come to you and the idea of quitting will fade away.
2. Keeping a journal for a variety of things in your life is a great idea. You can journal your path to achieving your goals and see where the roadblocks popped up and how to avoid them in the future. Keeping a patience journal or diary will help you understand how you lose your patience and what things upset you the most and how quickly. Understanding this, is key to learning not to get upset and staying calm in the eye of the storm.
3. Spend some time calmly thinking about how great things take time. You cannot rush, you need your plan, some action, add in adjustment, and then go forward. Think about those beautiful fruit trees you see in someone’s yard. They are now full with pears, peaches or beautiful apples. That didn’t happen overnight. The tree was small at first and survived wind and rain storms…perhaps even freezing winter conditions. Yet it was patient and resilient, growing to 15 feet or more. Take your time and good things will come to you.
4. Deep breathing is often overlooked. When you lose patience, your blood pressure and heart rate will start to rise. When this starts to happen, say “Stop,” loudly in your head. Start to take in air deep into your lungs and hold it for 5 seconds before slowly expelling it. Think of your stress, as being small particles that are now being pushed out of your lungs and away from you forever. Keep doing this until you feel calm and ready to begin again.
5. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Sometimes when we lose patience, it is for a very silly reason and then we build it up, until it becomes a hot burning furnace inside us. Be aware of your emotions at all times. When you feel yourself starting to lose patience with what you are doing or someone is trying to block your success, take a break. Go to a room by yourself and watch 15 to 20 minutes of comedy. Pick something you know is guaranteed to make you laugh even if you have seen it multiple times. Yes, you can be your own doctor and your prescription is laughter.
Persistent and Patience Will Help You Achieve Your Goals Step by Step
Do you know anyone who sets one year, two year or even five year goals? If you do, you’re probably going to find that their success rate is not that high. Think about employers who ask, “Where do you see yourself in five year’s time?” Most people just make something up and hope it sounds good to the interviewer’s ears. The truth is, the vast majority of people only have a vague idea of where they will be in five years and they don’t have a concrete path.
It is recommended that you set 90 days and at the end of 90 days, re-write them, adjusting what needs work. When you set yearly goals, like many do starting January 1st, it doesn’t take long before you change course or get frustrated and quit. When you do 90-day goals, your chances for success skyrocket.
Year long goals tend not to be super specific with laser focus. They are more of what you want, rather than what you are going to do and be, without procrastination. The reason you are far more focused, is the way you set your 90 days goals. You chunk it into 30 days, 60 and finally 90 days. You may end up tweaking those goals as you work through them and for sure, you review the whole thing at the end of 30 days.
When you are setting your goals, the first thing that comes to your mind, is the short time period. Instead of a year, you see 30 days and your brain clicks that it is very doable and you won’t get bored. The problem with year long goals, is right off the bat, it seems so far away and as you start slugging away at it-your brain begins to tell you, “This is going to take forever.” You start to lose patience, that the rewards are so far away, they are almost impossible to see. So like many people, you end up quitting.
When you write down your personal, business and even financial goals, have a reward in mind for the end of the 30 days. Having something special to work towards, can boost your chances of success. However you need to set measurable goals, so if you don’t meet them, then you cannot reward yourself and you know in the next 30 day set, what kept you from meeting your goals.
Now you can tweak and adjust what needs to be done. Think of goal lengths as a hurdle on a track. With 90 day goals, you only have 3 hurdles, instead of 12 with a year long goal set. You won’t quit because you can see the finish line clearly and with patience, you can clear each hurdle with room to spare.
Modeling Successful People-Follow How Some People Succeeded Against All Odds
Do you aspire to something lofty in life, yet have difficulty with having a persistent drive? If that is the case, modeling someone else who suffered setbacks but would not quit…is the optimum way to succeed. The best idea is to find someone who lives near you and spend time with them. Find out how they think and how they react to situations that might make you want to quit. When you are unable to model someone in person, then do some research and find someone whose story resonates with you. Learn everything you can about them. Read biographies on their lives, watch documentaries, and google every story about them.
Make sure to print those stories out and study them. In your research, you will learn how these people chose not to be defeated by adversity and developed an, “I will not quit,” attitude.
To give you a head start, we will go over the lives of 7 people, who had every reason to quit but did not. This will give you inspiration to model one of them or continue to research and find your absolute match.
Jack Ma- Everyone has heard of Amazon. What about Alibaba? If that doesn’t ring any bells, then you need to look up Jack Ma. He is every bit as successful as Jeff Bezos. His never give up attitude has made him a billionaire. In Jack’s case, it shows that intelligence has less to do with success, than persistence does. Jack grew up extremely poor and first made money by working in the tourist trade. It was a rough go so he wanted to go to school but failed his college exams twice. He couldn’t even get a job at KFC. In the end, Jack was able to get into teachers college and began teaching. He wanted more, so he moved to the United States to learn computers. Jack puts persistence first and when he sets his mind, he never gives up. He saw a need and created his own company building it to great heights.
James Dyson- Just like Edison and the lightbulb, James failed many times in his attempt to build a new style of vacuum. James wanted a vacuum with no bag and excellent power. He attempted to make his Dual Cyclone vacuum approximately 5,126 times before he actually hit the magic formula. It took 15 long years and he became a success story and is now referred to as Sir James Dyson due to his achievements. His story is one that should truly inspire you. Think about when you would have quit. Would you give an idea you were passionate about, 25, 50 or more chances? After reading this eBook and going on a new journey to ultimate persistence, your answer will be, “I would never give up, no matter how many years it took me.”
Stephen King- This one probably surprised you. Most people believe that Stephen was a success right out of the gate. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Stephen was writing and trying to publish at a very young age. In fact, by the time he was 14, the rejection letters he had received were on a nail in the wall and the weight was so much, the nail fell out. Stephen persisted and yes he did give up at first, on his breakthrough novel called, “Carrie.” He got frustrated and threw it in the trashcan but his wife, also a writer, pulled out it and told him it was a good novel. The novel, “Carrie,” was rejected 22 times after that and eventually was the rocket to Stephen’s long and successful career.
Nick Vujicic- is a very successful motivational speaker and evangelist. He was born without arms and legs, which made life very difficult for him and his parents. Nick suffered from bullying and depression early in his life and tried to kill himself. He survived the attempt and decided to change his life. A talk with a janitor in his school, gave him the courage to go out and motivate people to overcome any obstacle in their lives and persist in living the best life possible. Many thought it would be impossible for Nick to find love due to his appearance. That was not the case and he not only married but currently has four children. Nick shows us, that no matter what the circumstances, if you are willing to push forward and not quit…no matter what, you can be truly successful in whatever you choose to do.
Jack Canfield- Jack is one of the best known writers and motivational experts out there. His books, “Chicken Soup for______,” sell millions of copies. There are currently 200 plus titles in the series, which focuses on giving comfort to those who are struggling in an area of their lives and stories show that any obstacle can be overcome. Jack and his partner were surprised at how difficult it was to sell the original book. It was taken to traditional publishers approximately 200 times and rejected. Their agent explained that due to the concept of the book, they would have to have at least 20,000 already willing to buy it, if published. The idea of giving up, was one they dismissed and they found 20,000 people interested in their 1st comfort book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” They eventually found a publisher and the series took off. Along the way, they have tweaked the books and try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they live or what their economic status is. They persevered and are legends in non-fiction books.
Jim Carrey- Jim became one of the most successful actors ever. His story is one of extreme struggle and finally success. Growing up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Jim’s family suffered a financial loss, which included their home. Jim was around 15 and ended up taking a job as a janitor to help out, while the family lived out of their van. It was not the life he wanted and he was very angry about what had happened to the family. Jim decided to try standup comedy and was booed off the stage during his first attempt. He pumped himself up and continued to try, even moving at a young age to Los Angeles. It was a constant struggle and one night he found himself driving around. He stopped his car under the Hollywood sign and wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars. Jim never thought small and he carried it in his wallet until he received a $10 million dollar check for one of his movies.
Think how most teens would have reacted at having to take a job as janitor. Would you buckle down and create your dream lifestyle? You can, when you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude.
Bethany Hamilton- The mindset of Bethany Hamilton is just astounding. Growing up in Hawaii, she was in the water all the time and became a competitive surfer. Tragedy struck when she was attacked by a shark and lost her left arm. She resolved not to quit on herself and within 26 days was back on her surfboard. This is amazing considering how she would have to convince her brain, the odds of a second shark attack were beyond computing. Not only did she put aside any fears of another attack, she had to relearn how to properly balance herself on a board. With one arm gone, her balance was completely off, as surfers use their arms in the way a high wire walker uses a pole to stabilize themselves. Bethany conquered two issues in amazing fashion and she is a person to look to, when modeling a persistent attitude.
Bonus Section
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE
Having children means so many things. You bring them up and try to instill values and beliefs that will help them become wonderful people. Frequently, you are up early in the morning, for soccer, baseball or hockey games, as children need these for exercise and social skills. What about those music lessons? Perhaps you need to head to another room as your child is flaying away at the violin. One skill that many parents neglect to teach their children, is perseverance. Unless your parents taught you some lessons in that area, you probably don’t even consider what a wonderful skill it is for your child. By teaching them perseverance, you are setting them up for success in their personal and work life.
Think about it for a moment. How many people struggle at staying in a relationship and often give up quickly in a marriage. Many times, it is because they were not taught how to adjust to rough patches and being persistent in making things work. Marriage is work, there is no doubt about it and people need the skills to cope with adversity.
Start teaching your children persistence skills today and even you can benefit from the experience. Here are some ideas to put into practice now:
1. If allowed, children will play video games all day. While there are some benefits to video gaming, it is a past-time that should be limited. To have a well-rounded child who can flex their persistence muscles, give them new things to try on a frequent basis. It should be something you can do with them, so that they can see you fail, get up and dust yourself off and do it again. Martial classes such as taekwondo are perfect for this.
The patterns which are intricate take time to learn and you can buy DVD’s to watch and use at home, after class. Both you and your child can go from white belt to black belt together. Make a list of other skills you could practice together. Examples such as “How to Tie 10 Different types of Rope Knots, or Making Art From Recycled Parts.,” are possibilities. In rope tying, you learn to tie knots that can be used in camping, hiking and can even help in rescue situations. With making art from recycled parts, you teach your child, not only a skill but environmental issues as well. Each of these skills, won’t be learned overnight and failure, then success through persistence prevails.
2. Spend time sharing failures and successes with them. Go over some of yours and also use examples from around the world. This shows them over time, that life has ups and downs but through perseverance, one can succeed. Use examples of children who had an extremely hard time in mathematics but persistence in learning the skill, landed them a career in that field.
3. Like a sailboat on the ocean with heavy winds, sometimes you need to adjust. When the skill the child is trying to learn, is proving to be too difficult, make it slightly easier until they grasp it. On the other hand, if you notice they are succeeded too quickly to learn from it, then make the degree of difficulty a bit harder.
By planning out and putting your ideas into action, you can greatly help your child with skills that will make them mentally and physically tougher. Make no mistake, this is a tough old world and the better you prepare your children, the much better their success rate.
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE
Having a family is a blessing. It does come with many issues and if these are not dealt with early, then it is possible for a family to implode. Families with children and pets, have serious obligations. By using patience and persistence with each other, this can trickle down to the children/pets. There are so many things that need to be done in a household and one or both spouses sometimes require gentle reminders to get things done. It is when the reminders turn to nagging or outright fights, that rebellion takes place.
From the beginning, learn to explain why a certain task must be done at this point in time. Having reasons other than, “because I told you to,” will go a long ways in gaining cooperation. When a spouse has really bad habits such as overspending, sit down and patiently explain household budgeting as a team. Perhaps even writing family goals and doing family vision boards can be an added benefit to getting the message across. When a spouse understands that overspending is causing stress and taking away what might be a huge benefit, like a desired vacation…it is easier to gain trust and cooperation.
Children see and hear everything. This means that the practice you do, in being very patient with a spousal issue, the child models this in their home and school life. However it is possible that a child may need coaching in this and if both parents are onboard, this makes the task easier. It is not always easy to understand what a child goes through with their friends and school mates. It is possible that the outer influence means you have to step it up in regards to being persistent with lots of love. Children respond much better if given reasons instead being told that they must do something now. In addition, framing the question, so that it sounds like they have a say in the matter, makes them feel much more appreciated and worthy.
With regards to pets, training is a full time job when they are small. Again children model, so if they see a parent getting upset and punishing the pet, they may take it the wrong way. To avoid having your children being aggressive with the family pet, let them see you gently coaching the behavior you desire in the household.
Family life should be fun and full of love. When you practice the art of patience, combined with gentle persistence, your family life will something others will want to model.
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS
Hopefully you are not under the assumption that being an entrepreneur is easy.
Too many people look at Richard Branson and see the lifestyle he has today. Yes he owns Virgin Mobile and many other companies, which gives him the finances to own an island and go para-sailing with beautiful models. Yet, he had to be persistent in growing his business, just like anyone else.
Working for yourself has many wonderful perks, but be aware, you are responsible for everything. Once you get to the point that assistants are a viable thing, then creating, marketing and even the dull stuff like accounting are all in your hands. To be persistent and never give up on your entrepreneur dreams, here are 5 hot tips to get you in the right direction.
1. In business, the word, “No,” doesn’t have the same meaning as if you were invading someone’s personal space. It just means, “I’m not interested in this time, because you haven’t shown me enough benefits for me to say, “Yes.” To excel, don’t take the word “No,” personally. Instead, just say thank you and come back with an improved offer.
Getting frustrated is absurd. Stay calm and think about the situation, perhaps even do some visualization to allow your brain to find more solutions and benefits to your proposed customer. Cold calling sales people hear the word, “No,” everyday of their life. The biggest and the best make wonderful money because they persist, when they hear that negative word. It means try harder to them, it does not mean quit.
2. Avoid waiting until your product is perfect in your eyes. Put your best effort forth and be persistent about getting it out to the masses. Then be patient and tweak the product based on feedback. Do not give up on producing the best work you can. In internet marketing for instance, having as many “buy,” buttons up as is feasible, will give you the income you need to continue. You should then tweak, to make your products a gem.
Many people give up on internet marketing, without ever getting a single buy button up. The truly sad part is, many of these people spend one or more years…telling themselves they need to learn more before they can put out a product. Be flexible, learn from your mistakes and be persistent in getting products out to those who need what you have to offer.
3. Les Brown says it best, “You gotta be hungry.” Les was labeled as someone who could not be educated very early in the school system. At first he believed it, until a teacher told him not to and then coached him on how to respond if he wanted to succeed. Les wanted to be a DJ, which was a really cool thing back in his day.
All he could find was janitor work in a radio station. But he was hungry…hungry for success and would do anything except quit. He decided to watch the DJ’s while they worked and learned all the controls of the DJ booth. One night by accident, he was able to jump on the radio and his career took off. Les believes you should be hungry for knowledge, for life skills and of course for success. As an entrepreneur, you should always stay hungry for the next opportunity and never give up on making things happen. Remember that nothing will be handed to you, it is up to you to earn it by being persistent and going for it all the time.
4. As an entrepreneur, you will have wonderful ideas. Perhaps some of the things you visualize in your head, could help change the world. That won’t happen if they stay in your head. Someone else will put the product or idea out there. Every great idea in the world does not come to just one person. Even Charles Darwin had someone else who was onto the idea of evolution.
The same goes for the discovery of electricity. Many people have sat back, only to see the idea they thought was theirs and theirs alone, come to the market. They hesitated. If they had taken action, been persistent in bringing their product out, they could have changed their life. Regret is a terrible thing and since you are now an action person with zero quit, this is your time.
5. We all have only so many days on earth. Decide today, that you are committed to stay with your entrepreneurship for life. Never say that you will give it a shot for perhaps 5 years and if it doesn’t work out, perhaps you will go back to school. Once your mind understands that you live and breathe
entrepreneurship and will until your final day…it will come onboard and assist you. Look to those from history who had a vision and would not give up no matter what. The general Hannibal is one that you can learn from. To conquer his foes, he had to take his warrior elephants across the Alps. There were no roads. His motto was, “We will either find a way or make one.” An entrepreneur who has the mindset of Hannibal, will always succeed.
The Power of A “Never Give Up” Attitude
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 3
SILENCING THE NEGATIVE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD 6
HOW WE EQUATE “GOING FOR IT” AS PAIN 10
ENJOYING THE PLEASURE OF THE JOURNEY TO A PERSISTENT ATTITUDE 15
SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE UNDERSTAND PATIENCE IS A KEY HABIT. TOP TIPS FOR LEARNING PATIENCE 20
PERSISTENT AND PATIENCE WILL HELP YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS STEP BY STEP 23
MODELING SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE-FOLLOW HOW SOME PEOPLE SUCCEEDED AGAINST ALL ODDS. 25
BONUS SECTION 30
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE 30
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE 33
TOP TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS FOR BECOMING PERSISTENT IN THEIR BUSINESS 35
INTRODUCTION
As advanced as we are, humans still need to build good habits and let go of the bad ones. Persistence is a habit which like a muscle can be exercised and strengthened. In the animal kingdom, persistence comes naturally.
One only has to think of the honey badger, to see persistence in constant action. This small animal is fearless. It will fight a lion and not back down. When it comes to food, the honey badger has no equal. It will eat anything including venomous snakes. Honey badgers are basically immune to snake venom but they sometimes do get such a dose, that it knocks them out for a few minutes. Once they awaken, it is off to find another snake. They will dig right into a honeybee nest and take on the angry bees to get their honey fix. When it comes to food and fighting, the honey badger gets an A+ in persistence.
The persistence drive in humans has declined over the years. People will find a multitude of reasons to quit any endeavor the moment it gets difficult. They want success but are unwilling to put in the work and stick to a game plan.
There are a number of factors that can be considered, when trying to understand the “it will just be easier to quit,” attitude. As children are raised in a hectic world today, some parents find that they would rather allow their children to give up on certain things, rather than be patient and persistent in teaching them how to win at life. Once a child sees that being aggressively resistant towards a task, allows them the chance to do something more pleasurable, they will build upon that.
As adults of any age will find, the ability to focus on a goal or plan can be difficult. This is due to the high pace world we now live in. Giving up is starting to become the normal thing to do, once a roadblock appears. For most people it far easier to say, “This is too hard, this is too stressful, I cannot do it.” Once they convince themselves that giving up is the way to go, it now becomes the easy way out for anything they do in life. When a relationship becomes difficult, they have already built a neural pathway in their brain…that is the highway to giving up without much of a fight. Everything we do, creates neural pathways and we strengthen those pathways with repetition.
Look around you. When you see successful people, are they smartest people in the room? Frequently the answer is no. Smart people can get frustrated and give up, just like anyone else. If you really dig deep and even ask some questions, you find the successful people are the ones with the biggest persistence muscle. They were either born with or learned the ability of going forward no matter what life throws at them. In this eBook, the aim is to teach you how to be extremely persistent, while being patient at the same time. Your ultimate growth will come from this.
The goal of this eBook, is to give you a new way of thinking. We will show you how to break the negative pathways in your brain and build new strong positive pathways. In addition, we will cover why it is so important for your success in life, to full understand and implement the idea of having a powerful, never give up no matter what attitude. Following this eBook will greatly improve your chances of having a very successful life.
Silencing the Negative Voice in Your Head
Everyone has the same super computer available. Your brain is a marvelous bit of engineering and capable of tremendous amounts of data processing. Your stored memories are all there. Sometimes they are easy to access and at other times, it takes some work to open certain file drawers in your brain.
Not all the memories are good of course. The science of NLP which stands for neuro-linguistic programming can help with changing what a memory means to you. It is certainly an area of study that you should consider. To start your pathway to a better use of your personal super computer, let’s talk about “how you talk to yourself.”
This is extremely important when it comes to having a positive mental image of yourself. When a person says that they cannot do something, often an image of failure accompanies that statement. They have stacked experiences of giving up, when the going got hard. In addition, they have added tags, just like the ones people use in social media. For example, you may have mental tags like these:
#toohard
#failure
#painful
#giveup
#neverwin
The list for some people could be very long. It wasn’t always that way. As children, we thought we could do anything, including fly. Years of negative conditioning, from family, friends, school and eventually ourselves…led us to the conclusion that sometimes it was just easier to give up.
When we hit our teenage years, this really kicked into overdrive and eventually the negative self-talk outweighs the positive things we say internally and occasionally out loud with conviction.
The negative self-talk has multiple consequences and must be dealt with. If you know people who suffer from lack of self-esteem, poor self-confidence and depression, then you are likely looking at someone who replays negatives conversations in their head daily. They use poor word choices like, “I can’t, I should have, and I could have been or done this.” Repetive negative self-talk, layers itself in the brain and one could compare it to a physical thing like artery plaque in the heart region. Both are dangerous and should be taken care of immediately.
In order to build your never give up attitude, you will need to change how you talk to yourself. When you do this, you will not only be unstoppable, but all the negative issues discussed, will start to dissolve. You will feel amazing and have superior confidence in all that you do. Finally those black clouds of depression will lift. A word of caution here, if your depression is a chemical imbalance, then you need to see professional advice.
You can start your can do attitude, by eliminating negative words from your vocabulary and replace them with positive sayings. Start by making a list of negative words you are aware float around in your head like garbage in the ocean. Both need to be cleaned up, or there will be severe consequences. Now draw a line through each negative word and write down a positive word beside it. This will be your new “go to” word.
Understand and accept that getting help is a good thing. Many people feel weak when seeking assistance. However going to groups that discuss positivity and success, can be very helpful for you. You will meet new people who are on the same journey. They too have decided that persistence and never ever, give up…is the way they want to lead their lives.
Listening to, or reading self-help books is something everyone should be doing and quite frankly, this should be taught in elementary schools and upwards. Using your car as a university is something motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar preached about all his life. He believed listening to the car radio was a time waster and that we should feed our minds with positive words daily. Drive to work and listen to Zig or another master of motivation, Les Brown. In 30 days, you will see a massive difference in the way you think.
For our purposes today, there is a recommended reading. Dr. Shad Helmstetter wrote an outstanding book entitled, “What to say when you talk to yourself.” In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Helmstetter gives you a new way to think about and talk to yourself. Here is an example of a phrase that if you repeated every night before bed, would have a significant effect on your overall self-esteem. “I know that what I believe about myself, is what I will become. So I believe in the best for myself.”
Here is how you stop tossing and turning while replaying negative conversations in your mind. Memorize, the phrase Dr. Helmstetter has put together and repeat it over and over until you drift off to sleep. When your mind tries to go back to negativity, tell it to stop and then continue to repeat the phrase. When you believe in the best for yourself, then you will go for it and quitting will not be an option.
To get the most out of the book, pick 5 to10 phrases that resonate with you. When you read those phrases, you get goosebumps or feel a little rush of adrenaline. Write those phrases out on index cards and then put them all around your house.
If you have a family, get them involved. Have 2-3 of these index cards taped to your fridge and tell your kids, before they can open the fridge, they must say each phrase once as if it is a magic key. Put one in your bedroom that you can read while getting dressed in the morning. Don’t forget where you spent a lot of alone time. Yes, the bathroom is a perfect place to put an index card. Read the index card over and over, instead of looking at the drama on your Facebook feed.
You should be getting really excited now. To get the most out of this eBook, you should read it more than once and put yourself into massive action. Let’s move into pain vs pleasure and how it drives your life.
How We Equate “Going For It” as Pain
It’s been said that people will do anything to avoid pain and will seek pleasure, even if they know in the long run, life is going to get more painful. Pain avoidance is something many people excel at. An example would be someone who believes they have a novel inside them. The idea keeps cropping up and begging to be written.
As person starts and stops the writing process, they give way to negative self-talk and then look for a comfort. That comfort might be laying on the couch and watching television all day because they have mentally told themselves,”Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be better and I will really go for it. Maybe write 5K to 10K…just hammer it out.”
Tomorrow arrives and the thought of sitting in a chair seems to be painful, so they decide to get ready by having a nice hot coffee. Once the coffee is done, well there is a game show on, so better watch that and have a few laughs.
The procrastination they are doing is out of a belief that writing is going to be hard, really hard and they have to be 100% prepared. But they convince themselves they aren’t today, so perhaps they should go have a hamburger and fries. Substituting what they believe is pleasure-a hamburger and fries vs writing, is sadly the route the vast majority of people take.
We all love pleasure of any kind. It makes us feel good and drives away any sadness, even if only temporarily. With the advertising and the internet, people are even more persuaded to seek pleasure only. They see the successful people and believe there was no pain for those people to get where they are today. Their minds are filled with the best houses, the best cars and vacations to sunny beaches.
This is one reason why lotto tickets sales are in the billions. Many people convince themselves that they will win the lotto and then all their dreams come true. The opposite usually happens after a huge lotto win. In a short time the money is gone and perhaps even the people they loved, have disappeared.
A recent study showed that a notable amount of people were counting on a huge lotto win to fund their retirement. Instead of putting in the extra work and investing wisely, these people choose to play the lotto multiple times per week.
How do we stop this pain vs pleasure debate? The key thing is to re-label what pain is. There is physical pain and mental pain. When someone is in chronic pain, they tend to dwell on it and experience a great deal of depression. Learning to re-label physical pain, helps to cope with it. When a person understands that pain means they are still alive, with the opportunity to go for it and succeed, then it is possible for them to excel.
When you have a chronic disease and zero pain, it is likely because you have passed from this world. Pain tells us we are alive. There are many extreme sports fanatics that have learned to re-label pain and make it pleasure. There are mountain climbers with no legs and arms that convince themselves to scale some tough mountains. As the pain sets in, they equate it to pleasure because they are alive and headed to the top of the world, physically and mentally.
Mental pain needs to be re-labeled as well, in order to really develop the “no quit,” attitude. There are different types of mental pain associated with dropping procrastination and instead have a persistent drive. Here are the steps to take when you start to feel mental pain.
Step 1
Take a few calm moments to think about what is going on inside your head. Take deep even breaths and relax all your muscles. Now ask yourself what emotions you are feeling in that moment.
Step 2
Once you know the emotion, write it down on a piece of paper. Then see it as it is, a negative thought that disrupts you. Now pick a word that can replace the negative with a positive. Here are some examples. When you mentally say to yourself, “I fear doing this because……” replace with, “I’m feeling some anticipation right now and that means things are going to get good.”
When you say to yourself, “I feel pressure to do this,” replace it with, “I’ve got a task and I can chunk it, which makes it very doable.”
Every emotion you feel, you have control over. Instead of allowing negative thoughts about doing something because it takes you out of your comfort zone or you would rather doing some very pleasurable instead…you can change it. Make your word choices turn pain into the pleasure of going for it and being everything you ever wanted to be. The massive pleasure that you get at the end, is worth the effort of changing your task from a pain one to an inspiring thought of pleasure.
Another method to change from pain to pleasure, is breaking the habitual loop of pain memories in your brain. When you want to develop a “go for it,” attitude, you may be blocked if you have a number of memories you replay, that are focused on the number of times you quit.
Think of those memories as flash drives. Each flash drives has the time you quit school, quit three jobs in a row or constantly gave up on relationships the minute it got rough. Sit back and visualize that flashdrive and when you can picture it, mentally throw it into the air and blast it to pieces with a baseball bat.
Immediately think of a memory when you had something to do and you went for it 100% and remember exactly how you felt at that moment. Think of all the pleasure you got from yourself and those around you, who congratulated you on the massive success. If you have difficulty thinking of that one time, then think of something you wanted to succeed at and act as if it happened. Your brain is not able to tell the difference from a real event or one that you imagined.
If you find that hard to believe, then think of the times you put yourself into a deep state of fear, when you heard a noise. It may have just been a creaky board in a house but suddenly you were able to transform that noise into a killer with a knife. Remember how you got goosebumps and chills? That is you, creating a scene that your brain is believing to be true.
The big key to changing the negative CD in your head, is finding a technique that works for you. Experiment with this. If blasting the CD with a shotgun is not working, try dissolving the CD in a big vat of acid. Work on this until you find an image that helps you erase the CD and the memories it hold…permanently.
When you practice the blasting apart or erasing of old negative hurts, it will lead to that thought having little or no power over you. That means you are free to replace the thought with one that is positive and gives you pleasure.
Enjoying the Pleasure of the Journey to a Persistent Attitude
One of the biggest obstacles to having a persistent attitude, is believing everything should be easy. We constantly hear or read stories about people who have had massive success, however the reporting is slanted to only show the rewards of success. Frequently news reports leave out all the bumps in the road that sprang up in front of that successful person. This is turn, leads to a wrongful assumption in most people’s mind. They begin to believe success is easy and when it eludes them, it means they are not worthy and should not try anymore.
To be persistence and achieve success, you must change what your beliefs are. When you read a biography of a successful person, take note of what obstacles they faced and how they broke them down with a never quit attitude.
Just for a moment, sit back and think about this. How would life be if everything was extremely simple and you didn’t have to do anything to see success? If you really are sincere in your thoughts, you will realize that life would actually be very boring. Setting and achieving goals gives us huge pleasure but only if we had to knock down some hurdles to get there.
Obstacles make you stronger and add much pleasure to the end result. You look back and see how you smashed through those roadblocks… nothing could hold you back. Now you feel intense pleasure and are ready for a new challenge. To make your journey more pleasurable, let’s go over some ways to get the real juice out of life.
One man who excels in persistence, is former navy seal, David Goggins. His life story is incredible and worth reading about. Later in his navy seal life, he started training the people who were trying to enter the seal program and found that they were for the most part, big and tough…everywhere except between the ears. He resolved to change that and to make better participants for seal training.
What he learned to believe, is your need to grow your mental toughness. When you do this, it won’t be easy but you can take pleasure in a type of growth you may never experienced before. We all grow up and some of us exercise and do sports which helps our muscles grow. It is not easy but the rewards feel good. Mental toughness is no different. Here is how you can start building your mental toughness today.
1. Read the book, “Feel the Fear and do it Anyway,” by Susan Jeffers.
2. From that book, you will learn to do something uncomfortable everyday and do it, because it won’t kill you.
3. Some ideas are making 2-3 calls a day, if you are uncomfortable calling people, especially for work purposes, Susan gives you many ideas. Here is one you can try today. Go to a coffee shop and talk to everyone within three feet of you, if meeting new people makes you uncomfortable. You don’t even have to sell them anything, just get used to approaching people in a friendly manner.
Now that you have the idea, make a list of things that make you uncomfortable and do each one until you are fully comfortable. Be patient and do a chunk a day. Don’t try to pick up the phone and call 20 people to make an appointment, if cold calling terrifies you. Bit by bit, your mental toughness will strengthen, and you will be able to do thinks that you would have quit on before.
It also helps to give yourself a tiny reward each time you do an uncomfortable task. Make your 3 calls, have a cappuccino and listen to 15 minutes of your favorite band. These little rewards of pleasure, are enough to get your brain onboard with change. Don’t think that is difficult. You are not G. Gordon Liddy, who as a young boy, wanted to prove to himself that he was fearless. His idea? Find a rat, roast it and eat it and nothing else could possibly stop him in anything he wanted to do.
Think about something you have always wanted to do, but never started or did give it a shot but quickly gave up. The aim here is not to dwell on the failure, just to get a new starting point. For anything you want, you need to have an intense reason why. Just wanting to get a black belt in taekwondo because it is something that John at work did, or you love martial arts movies…is definitely a recipe for quitting before the end. No matter what it is you want to accomplish, think about it and write it down. Then list 5 reasons why you want to do this. Each reason should move you to the point, that just thinking about it gets you excited.
Next up, decide how long it will take to get that black belt, write that novella or get the supervisors job you have always dreamed of. Yes, there are steps to getting promotions. You need to really look into that, because it rarely happens just because you have a pleasing personality.
For our example, let’s look at writing a novella. Writing a novella or any size book for Amazon Kindle is very popular. However, if you are thinking of doing it just for the money, it is not likely going to work. You need some big reasons to put in that effort.
Most people who attempt to write a novella or other type of short read, have heard they are popular these days. They put in a day or two and after looking at the page or two that they came up with, they quit. Writing isn’t easy. But it can be a pleasurable and rewarding experience if you do it right.
You need to chunk your writing. Start by writing out your idea and the main characters. The next day, come up with chapter sizes and lengths. You would continue on this path until you had everything fleshed out and are ready to write the first sentence. This time around, you won’t quit, because you are going to reward yourself. This is a way to trick your brain into cooperating with you. Doing it the normal way, gives your brain the opportunity to whine about it being too hard. Your brain wants you to have fun and loads of pleasure. This is where rewards come in. For each section you chunk, write down what your reward will be when you finish. It can be something simple like a really hot bath with candles and a glass of wine or delaying the movie you are dying to see, until you are ready for your first reward.
Go down through your list now and put in your simple but pleasurable rewards. When you have done that, write in big letters at the end, “Once I have completed my 13K novella in 3 months, I will reward myself with dinner for two at this amazing restaurant.”
You can make your journey to a persistence mental attitude fun and full of pleasure. It is also a good idea to write a daily journal entry and showcase your growth. You can refer back to it, just to see how far you’ve come and take pleasure in the ride.
Successful People Understand Patience is a Key Habit. Top Tips for Learning Patience
You want to go for it. Your big dream is right there in front of your eyes but you keep dropping the ball. Frustration might be your middle name. If any of this, is sounding like what you go through frequently, the reason might be something other than you think.
Yes, we do sabotage our success through a variety of ways, yet many would not name patience as one of the issues. The truth is, the road is rough and if you constantly swerve, speed up, slow down and then hit the brakes…then you need to work on your patience. Here are tips you can start today, that will help you understand what is going on in your head and how to chill when the going gets tough.
1. Getting physically active when things aren’t going right will help you a lot. Yes, you can get into the rough sports but one of the best things for patience, is to learn Tai chi. you can simply buy a DVD or go to YouTube. There are several reasons why Tai chi should be on your list of possibities. Tai chi is martial arts in slow motion.
Many people are not aware that if you speed up the movements, this is a true martial art for protection. By slowing it down to a crawl, you concentrate on each move and exactly how you are breathing. Your blood pressure will lower and a complete sense of calmness will come over you. After your session, you relax and at look the problem you were facing with fresh eyes. New ways to reach that big goal will come to you and the idea of quitting will fade away.
2. Keeping a journal for a variety of things in your life is a great idea. You can journal your path to achieving your goals and see where the roadblocks popped up and how to avoid them in the future. Keeping a patience journal or diary will help you understand how you lose your patience and what things upset you the most and how quickly. Understanding this, is key to learning not to get upset and staying calm in the eye of the storm.
3. Spend some time calmly thinking about how great things take time. You cannot rush, you need your plan, some action, add in adjustment, and then go forward. Think about those beautiful fruit trees you see in someone’s yard. They are now full with pears, peaches or beautiful apples. That didn’t happen overnight. The tree was small at first and survived wind and rain storms…perhaps even freezing winter conditions. Yet it was patient and resilient, growing to 15 feet or more. Take your time and good things will come to you.
4. Deep breathing is often overlooked. When you lose patience, your blood pressure and heart rate will start to rise. When this starts to happen, say “Stop,” loudly in your head. Start to take in air deep into your lungs and hold it for 5 seconds before slowly expelling it. Think of your stress, as being small particles that are now being pushed out of your lungs and away from you forever. Keep doing this until you feel calm and ready to begin again.
5. Laughter truly is the best medicine. Sometimes when we lose patience, it is for a very silly reason and then we build it up, until it becomes a hot burning furnace inside us. Be aware of your emotions at all times. When you feel yourself starting to lose patience with what you are doing or someone is trying to block your success, take a break. Go to a room by yourself and watch 15 to 20 minutes of comedy. Pick something you know is guaranteed to make you laugh even if you have seen it multiple times. Yes, you can be your own doctor and your prescription is laughter.
Persistent and Patience Will Help You Achieve Your Goals Step by Step
Do you know anyone who sets one year, two year or even five year goals? If you do, you’re probably going to find that their success rate is not that high. Think about employers who ask, “Where do you see yourself in five year’s time?” Most people just make something up and hope it sounds good to the interviewer’s ears. The truth is, the vast majority of people only have a vague idea of where they will be in five years and they don’t have a concrete path.
It is recommended that you set 90 days and at the end of 90 days, re-write them, adjusting what needs work. When you set yearly goals, like many do starting January 1st, it doesn’t take long before you change course or get frustrated and quit. When you do 90-day goals, your chances for success skyrocket.
Year long goals tend not to be super specific with laser focus. They are more of what you want, rather than what you are going to do and be, without procrastination. The reason you are far more focused, is the way you set your 90 days goals. You chunk it into 30 days, 60 and finally 90 days. You may end up tweaking those goals as you work through them and for sure, you review the whole thing at the end of 30 days.
When you are setting your goals, the first thing that comes to your mind, is the short time period. Instead of a year, you see 30 days and your brain clicks that it is very doable and you won’t get bored. The problem with year long goals, is right off the bat, it seems so far away and as you start slugging away at it-your brain begins to tell you, “This is going to take forever.” You start to lose patience, that the rewards are so far away, they are almost impossible to see. So like many people, you end up quitting.
When you write down your personal, business and even financial goals, have a reward in mind for the end of the 30 days. Having something special to work towards, can boost your chances of success. However you need to set measurable goals, so if you don’t meet them, then you cannot reward yourself and you know in the next 30 day set, what kept you from meeting your goals.
Now you can tweak and adjust what needs to be done. Think of goal lengths as a hurdle on a track. With 90 day goals, you only have 3 hurdles, instead of 12 with a year long goal set. You won’t quit because you can see the finish line clearly and with patience, you can clear each hurdle with room to spare.
Modeling Successful People-Follow How Some People Succeeded Against All Odds
Do you aspire to something lofty in life, yet have difficulty with having a persistent drive? If that is the case, modeling someone else who suffered setbacks but would not quit…is the optimum way to succeed. The best idea is to find someone who lives near you and spend time with them. Find out how they think and how they react to situations that might make you want to quit. When you are unable to model someone in person, then do some research and find someone whose story resonates with you. Learn everything you can about them. Read biographies on their lives, watch documentaries, and google every story about them.
Make sure to print those stories out and study them. In your research, you will learn how these people chose not to be defeated by adversity and developed an, “I will not quit,” attitude.
To give you a head start, we will go over the lives of 7 people, who had every reason to quit but did not. This will give you inspiration to model one of them or continue to research and find your absolute match.
Jack Ma- Everyone has heard of Amazon. What about Alibaba? If that doesn’t ring any bells, then you need to look up Jack Ma. He is every bit as successful as Jeff Bezos. His never give up attitude has made him a billionaire. In Jack’s case, it shows that intelligence has less to do with success, than persistence does. Jack grew up extremely poor and first made money by working in the tourist trade. It was a rough go so he wanted to go to school but failed his college exams twice. He couldn’t even get a job at KFC. In the end, Jack was able to get into teachers college and began teaching. He wanted more, so he moved to the United States to learn computers. Jack puts persistence first and when he sets his mind, he never gives up. He saw a need and created his own company building it to great heights.
James Dyson- Just like Edison and the lightbulb, James failed many times in his attempt to build a new style of vacuum. James wanted a vacuum with no bag and excellent power. He attempted to make his Dual Cyclone vacuum approximately 5,126 times before he actually hit the magic formula. It took 15 long years and he became a success story and is now referred to as Sir James Dyson due to his achievements. His story is one that should truly inspire you. Think about when you would have quit. Would you give an idea you were passionate about, 25, 50 or more chances? After reading this eBook and going on a new journey to ultimate persistence, your answer will be, “I would never give up, no matter how many years it took me.”
Stephen King- This one probably surprised you. Most people believe that Stephen was a success right out of the gate. Nothing could be further from the truth, because Stephen was writing and trying to publish at a very young age. In fact, by the time he was 14, the rejection letters he had received were on a nail in the wall and the weight was so much, the nail fell out. Stephen persisted and yes he did give up at first, on his breakthrough novel called, “Carrie.” He got frustrated and threw it in the trashcan but his wife, also a writer, pulled out it and told him it was a good novel. The novel, “Carrie,” was rejected 22 times after that and eventually was the rocket to Stephen’s long and successful career.
Nick Vujicic- is a very successful motivational speaker and evangelist. He was born without arms and legs, which made life very difficult for him and his parents. Nick suffered from bullying and depression early in his life and tried to kill himself. He survived the attempt and decided to change his life. A talk with a janitor in his school, gave him the courage to go out and motivate people to overcome any obstacle in their lives and persist in living the best life possible. Many thought it would be impossible for Nick to find love due to his appearance. That was not the case and he not only married but currently has four children. Nick shows us, that no matter what the circumstances, if you are willing to push forward and not quit…no matter what, you can be truly successful in whatever you choose to do.
Jack Canfield- Jack is one of the best known writers and motivational experts out there. His books, “Chicken Soup for______,” sell millions of copies. There are currently 200 plus titles in the series, which focuses on giving comfort to those who are struggling in an area of their lives and stories show that any obstacle can be overcome. Jack and his partner were surprised at how difficult it was to sell the original book. It was taken to traditional publishers approximately 200 times and rejected. Their agent explained that due to the concept of the book, they would have to have at least 20,000 already willing to buy it, if published. The idea of giving up, was one they dismissed and they found 20,000 people interested in their 1st comfort book, “Chicken Soup for the Soul.” They eventually found a publisher and the series took off. Along the way, they have tweaked the books and try to offer something for everyone, no matter where they live or what their economic status is. They persevered and are legends in non-fiction books.
Jim Carrey- Jim became one of the most successful actors ever. His story is one of extreme struggle and finally success. Growing up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Jim’s family suffered a financial loss, which included their home. Jim was around 15 and ended up taking a job as a janitor to help out, while the family lived out of their van. It was not the life he wanted and he was very angry about what had happened to the family. Jim decided to try standup comedy and was booed off the stage during his first attempt. He pumped himself up and continued to try, even moving at a young age to Los Angeles. It was a constant struggle and one night he found himself driving around. He stopped his car under the Hollywood sign and wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars. Jim never thought small and he carried it in his wallet until he received a $10 million dollar check for one of his movies.
Think how most teens would have reacted at having to take a job as janitor. Would you buckle down and create your dream lifestyle? You can, when you arm yourself with the right tools and attitude.
Bethany Hamilton- The mindset of Bethany Hamilton is just astounding. Growing up in Hawaii, she was in the water all the time and became a competitive surfer. Tragedy struck when she was attacked by a shark and lost her left arm. She resolved not to quit on herself and within 26 days was back on her surfboard. This is amazing considering how she would have to convince her brain, the odds of a second shark attack were beyond computing. Not only did she put aside any fears of another attack, she had to relearn how to properly balance herself on a board. With one arm gone, her balance was completely off, as surfers use their arms in the way a high wire walker uses a pole to stabilize themselves. Bethany conquered two issues in amazing fashion and she is a person to look to, when modeling a persistent attitude.
Bonus Section
HOW TEACHING YOUR CHILDREN PERSISTENCE WILL SET THEM UP FOR SUCCESS IN LIFE
Having children means so many things. You bring them up and try to instill values and beliefs that will help them become wonderful people. Frequently, you are up early in the morning, for soccer, baseball or hockey games, as children need these for exercise and social skills. What about those music lessons? Perhaps you need to head to another room as your child is flaying away at the violin. One skill that many parents neglect to teach their children, is perseverance. Unless your parents taught you some lessons in that area, you probably don’t even consider what a wonderful skill it is for your child. By teaching them perseverance, you are setting them up for success in their personal and work life.
Think about it for a moment. How many people struggle at staying in a relationship and often give up quickly in a marriage. Many times, it is because they were not taught how to adjust to rough patches and being persistent in making things work. Marriage is work, there is no doubt about it and people need the skills to cope with adversity.
Start teaching your children persistence skills today and even you can benefit from the experience. Here are some ideas to put into practice now:
1. If allowed, children will play video games all day. While there are some benefits to video gaming, it is a past-time that should be limited. To have a well-rounded child who can flex their persistence muscles, give them new things to try on a frequent basis. It should be something you can do with them, so that they can see you fail, get up and dust yourself off and do it again. Martial classes such as taekwondo are perfect for this.
The patterns which are intricate take time to learn and you can buy DVD’s to watch and use at home, after class. Both you and your child can go from white belt to black belt together. Make a list of other skills you could practice together. Examples such as “How to Tie 10 Different types of Rope Knots, or Making Art From Recycled Parts.,” are possibilities. In rope tying, you learn to tie knots that can be used in camping, hiking and can even help in rescue situations. With making art from recycled parts, you teach your child, not only a skill but environmental issues as well. Each of these skills, won’t be learned overnight and failure, then success through persistence prevails.
2. Spend time sharing failures and successes with them. Go over some of yours and also use examples from around the world. This shows them over time, that life has ups and downs but through perseverance, one can succeed. Use examples of children who had an extremely hard time in mathematics but persistence in learning the skill, landed them a career in that field.
3. Like a sailboat on the ocean with heavy winds, sometimes you need to adjust. When the skill the child is trying to learn, is proving to be too difficult, make it slightly easier until they grasp it. On the other hand, if you notice they are succeeded too quickly to learn from it, then make the degree of difficulty a bit harder.
By planning out and putting your ideas into action, you can greatly help your child with skills that will make them mentally and physically tougher. Make no mistake, this is a tough old world and the better you prepare your children, the much better their success rate.
USE PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF FAMILY LIFE
Having a family is a blessing. It does come with many issues and if these are not dealt with early, then it is possible for a family to implode. Families with children and pets, have serious obligations. By using patience and persistence with each other, this can trickle down to the children/pets. There are so many things that need to be done in a household and one or both spouses sometimes require gentle reminders to get things done. It is when the reminders turn to nagging or outright fights, that rebellion takes place.
From the beginning, learn to explain why a certain task must be done at this point in time. Having reasons other than, “because I told you to,” will go a long ways in gaining cooperation. When a spouse has really bad habits such as overspending, sit down and patiently explain household budgeting as a team. Perhaps even writing family goals and doing family vision boards can be an added benefit to getting the message across. When a spouse understands that overspending is causing stress and taking away what might be a huge benefit, like a desired vacation…it is easier to gain trust and cooperation.
Children see and hear everything. This means that the practice you do, in being very patient with a spousal issue, the child models this in their home and school life. However it is possible that a child may need coaching in this and if both parents are onboard, this makes the task easier. It is not always easy to understand what a child goes through with their friends and school mates. It is possible that the outer influence means you have to step it up in regards to being persistent with lots of love. Children respond much better if given reasons instead being told that they must do something now. In addition, framing the question, so that it sounds like they have a say in the matter, makes them feel much more appreciated and worthy.
With regards to pets, training is a full time job when they are small. Again children model, so if they see a parent getting upset and punishing the pet, they may take it the wrong way. To avoid having your childre means, “I’m not interested in this time, because you haven’t shown me enough benefits for me to say, “Yes.” To excel, don’t take the word “No,” personally. Instead, just say thank you and come back with an improved offer.
Getting frustrated is absurd. Stay calm and think about the situation, perhaps even do some visualization to allow your brain to find more solutions and benefits to your proposed customer. Cold calling sales people hear the word, “No,” everyday of their life. The biggest and the best make wonderful money because they persist, when they hear that negative word. It means try harder to them, it does not mean quit.
2. Avoid waiting until your product is perfect in your eyes. Put your best effort forth and be persistent about getting it out to the masses. Then be patient and tweak the product based on feedback. Do not give up on producing the best work you can. In internet marketing for instance, having as many “buy,” buttons up as is feasible, will give you the income you need to continue. You should then tweak, to make your products a gem.
Many people give up on internet marketing, without ever getting a single buy button up. The truly sad part is, many of these people spend one or more years…telling themselves they need to learn more before they can put out a product. Be flexible, learn from your mistakes and be persistent in getting products out to those who need what you have to offer.
3. Les Brown says it best, “You gotta be hungry.” Les was labeled as someone who could not be educated very early in the school system. At first he believed it, until a teacher told him not to and then coached him on how to respond if he wanted to succeed. Les wanted to be a DJ, which was a really cool thing back in his day.
All he could find was janitor work in a radio station. But he was hungry…hungry for success and would do anything except quit. He decided to watch the DJ’s while they worked and learned all the controls of the DJ booth. One night by accident, he was able to jump on the radio and his career took off. Les believes you should be hungry for knowledge, for life skills and of course for success. As an entrepreneur, you should always stay hungry for the next opportunity and never give up on making things happen. Remember that nothing will be handed to you, it is up to you to earn it by being persistent and going for it all the time.
4. As an entrepreneur, you will have wonderful ideas. Perhaps some of the things you visualize in your head, could help change the world. That won’t happen if they stay in your head. Someone else will put the product or idea out there. Every great idea in the world does not come to just one person. Even Charles Darw
