In almost all of the conferences, seminars, forums and other gatherings I have attended in the past few years, the same question always seem to pop up from someone in the audience. The question, always directed to the "successful" business person or entrepreneur in the panel goes something like: "What does it take to make it? How did you attain X?". And the presenter, almost invariably will mention (while fighting a pressed need to appear humble despite his or her hero status) a dozen values or so to aspire to. The interesting thing is that about 90% of the time you will hear perseverance among that select set.
But how do you prepare for perseverance? How do you exercise such a thing when you already feel that you are trying hard enough? I have found the answer to be first, very personal and second, relative. It is relative because we persevere in relation to ourselves, our own concepts of "trying hard enough" and our self imposed limits and not those of others. It is personal because only we know the remedy to our lack of perseverance. So there is no point in sharing magic formulas for perseverance because what it takes to keep on rolling despite the punches will be unique to each one of us anyway.
For me, exercising perseverance takes exercising...literally! Working out has become more of a mental routine than a physical one. Jumping on a treadmill and marking 25 minutes of running is always a mental challenge against marking 15. Forcing myself to stay on it through the "mountain trail" as opposed to the "forest walk" mode is an internal conflict every single time. Yet I do it and every once in a while (if I'm feeling really inspired to exercise perseverance) I'll add another 2 or 3 extra minutes to the count once I find myself in the last minute of the run. I try to do that with every machine or routine: add extra minutes/repetitions once I'm just about to complete the original objective. That is the key for me. Because so may times in life we set ourselves timetables and goals only to find them delayed or suddenly unreachable just when we were a hair away from getting there.
We all have objectives and most of us work hard toward them but real perseverance is staying on life's "treadmill" for the extra two minutes it throws at you just when you thought you were about to prepare for a nice and easy cool-down. Reflecting on this fact and living it every time I go to the gym is my personal exercise on perseverance, so that I am not caught off-guard when it turns out that I have to work out even harder (whether in life or in business) than I had originally envisioned.
Last night I watched a very nice French movie, "Fauteuils d'Orchestre" or "Orchestra Seats" (although for some unexplainable reason they translated it to "Avenue Montaigne" for the American market) that among some other topics, brushed on the theme of people's perception of perseverance. Without ruining the story for you I will leave you with the movie's closing statement, which meant so much to me, in the hopes that you'll pick it up and watch it someday:
"You have to take risks Jessica. I pushed my way in and you know, Jessica, I had a wonderful life."
What is your exercise on perseverance?
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