‘Your success in any endeavor depends on your willingness to never give up, even when the reward is delayed.’ – Harvey Mackay.
With unabated perseverance, Susan B Anthony was an advocate for American women’s rights to vote in the late 1800s. The majority opinion was that women didn’t have to vote or be equal to men. They labeled anyone who wanted to change that notion a troublemaker. For that reason, some admired Susan while some traditionalists despised her. She let nothing deter her, soldiering on until she had a significant following.
At one gathering thrown in honor of her work, she received flower bouquets and joked about a particular time in her political career when people had thrown plenty of things at her, not flowers. Before her death, people asked Susan if her pursuits had been worth all the things she had gone through. Her answer was a definite yes. They enacted the law allowing women to vote around 1920, several years after her death.
In general, American women and women worldwide will always attribute their ability to vote in the present and future times to Susan’s persistence and determination to fight the system on their behalf.
Perseverance separates the success stories from failures. It separates the winners from the quitters. Any exceptional person significant enough to write about in the world’s history books has faced tremendous challenges in their various pursuits. What clinches success is the determination to win despite those challenges. We should never leave success to chance or luck. It is hard work, persistence, and an attitude that refuses to take no for an answer shapes it.
Why is perseverance essential?
Everyone wants success in whatever they set their minds to do, but we forget the hardships lying in the path to that success. We are human enough to fall short of our goals a couple of times, despite our meticulous planning and goal-getter mindset.
Any failure you encounter will chip away at your confidence and self-belief. It becomes easier to believe yourself knowing you do not have what it takes, and that results in a great temptation to throw in the towel and settle for something less risky. The pathway to success is never a straight line. It requires a level of alertness to navigate the bumps and steer clear of the failure-sized manholes waiting for your fall.
Perseverance takes you to your destination despite those setbacks. What guarantees you of success is getting up after every fall. Determination and persistence mean you will fight for your dream, despite the temptation to give up.
It means that you know that the journey is rough but will risk the discomfort to get the rewards when you reach your destination—rewards of perseverance—reaping your labor’s fruit. Agricultural metaphors can represent the story of success. There is a lot of groundwork before you can see the harvest. The planning stage is preparing the land. Next, you plant something to reap. Part with something of yourself in your pursuit of success, pouring it into the ground and waiting for it to yield fruit. After that, nurture the plant by watering it frequently and weeding out whatever is hindering it from growing.
Invest in your dream by watering it with the required resources. See what has the potential to choke or compete with your vision and weed it out. All processes involved are not glamorous. They demand hard work and persistence. Only then can you expect fruit to break forth.
Perseverance Requires Patience
It would help if you also were patient, as fruits will not grow overnight. Pour what you can into your dream and be patient before you quit.
- Building confidence for future endeavors. Accomplishing a challenging task will bring you a lot of confidence to tackle your journey’s next leg. Your excitement to take on more comes from knowing that you persevered in previous endeavors, including those that seemed impossible.
You develop the confidence to deliver better on your goals. It also does wonders for your repertoire. You can give your clientele reasons to choose you over your competitors when you articulate your past successes. Eventually, you come highly recommended in your sphere, which is the greatest reward for anyone whose dreams offer others service. Persevering and winning because of it will always open doors for the future.
- You learn more about who you are. The journey to attaining your goals is often long and trying. Being determined to succeed teaches you a lot about who you are. If you quit easily, you get to know your low threshold for patience.
With perseverance, you also learn about your strengths and limitations to work the strengths to your advantage and find ways through your constraints. Rewards are not always instant, but with perseverance, they are a guarantee. Be willing to persist in the face of challenges, and you will be well on your way to success.
Perseverance means you never give up if you know you are right. Remain courageous and confident when you know the odds are against you. Permit no one to intimidate you or shake your belief in yourself. It takes courage and resolve to be successful. Many people who faced significant challenges to find greatness with perseverance.