Do you give up when you run into obstacles or do you hang in there?
Hanging in there, being persistent is a common quality of high achievers. They don’t quit when the going gets tough.
Robin Roberts, anchor for Good Morning America (GMA), was at the top of her game. Then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She chose to remain working and to share her journey through surgery and chemotherapy with the GMA audience. As a result of the chemotherapy, she contracted a rare blood disease and underwent a bone marrow transplant. She returned to GMA and is once again at the top of her game.
Oprah Winfrey was fired from her first her TV job. The producer who fired her said she was “unfit for television.” She went on to have the number one rated show on television, The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was syndicated across the U.S.
J.K. Rowling submitted the script for the first Harry Potter book to each of the major publishing houses and all of them rejected it. She finally found a small publishing house that would print it. She was offered a small advance and only 1,000 copies were printed. The book won some writing awards and things took off. She has now sold more 400 million copies of her books.
What do these three women have in common? They didn’t give up. They kept going even when the obstacles looked too big. You can too!
There are a couple of things that you can do.
First, look forward. Anticipate the obstacles that might show up and come up with at least one way to over come each obstacle. Later when the obstacle comes up, you will be prepared to deal with it instead of letting the obstacle derail you.
Sometimes obstacles come up that you didn’t anticipate or might not have thought of in your wildest dreams. There is nothing that you could have done to prepare for these. When one of these shows up, take some time to brainstorm possible solutions. Try to come up with at least three ways that you could overcome the obstacle. Approach the problem with the attitude that there is a solution and you are going to find it. This might take some time, but it will be worth it.
The longer you hang in there, the more likely it is that you will get what you want. Sometimes things take off right after you thought about quitting. Don’t quit. Don’t abandon your dreams. Keep going and make them happen.
This blog posting is based on Success Principle # 22: Practice Persistence
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