19. The Law of Persistence

Under the Laws of Success

Your ability to persist in the face of setbacks and disappointments is your measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

Persistence is the iron quality of success. The most important asset you can have-the one quality that separates you from everyone else-is your ability to persist longer than anyone else.


The first corollary of the Law of Persistence is
Persistence is self-discipline in action.

When you persist in the face of the inevitable setbacks, delays, disappointments, and temporary defeats you will experience in life, and you continue to persist in spite of them, you demonstrate to yourself and to the people around you that you have the qualities of self-discipline and self-mastery that are absolutely indispensable for the achievement of any great success.

Winston Churchill summarized the most important lesson of his life in the second corollary of the Law of Persistence when he said,
"Never give in; never, never, give in."

Churchill believed, and proved again and again throughout his lifetime, that bulldog tenacity in the face of what appeared to be overwhelming defeat was often the critical quality that turned that defeat into victory. Churchill is considered to be perhaps the greatest statesman of the twentieth century because of his willingness to endure without complaint and to hold on tenaciously in the midst of what seemed to be certain defeat and failure.

When you back all of your goals and plans with unshakable determination and persistence, you will eventually find that there is nothing in the world that can stop you. You will become an irresistible force of nature. Your goals of high achievement will become your realities.

How you can apply this law immediately:

1.Make a list of each of the problems or challenges you are facing right now. In what areas are you feeling discouraged and unsure? In what areas do you need to persist even more than you are today? Keep reminding yourself that "Failure is not an option!"

2. Resolve in advance that, no matter what happens, you will never give up. Remember that if you advance confidently in the direction of your dreams, and you resolve in advance that you will never quit, you must ultimately be a great success. No one can ever stop you but yourself. Go for it!

Summary

Success is not an accident. Success is the definite result of continuous, persistent action in the unrelenting pursuit of your goals in a manner consistent with universal laws.

If only one or two people had practiced these timeless principles and achieved great success as a result, you could dismiss their experiences as luck or coincidence. But if hundreds of thousands, and even millions, of men and women have started with nothing and built wonderful lives by harmonizing their behavior with these laws, wouldn’t it be a good idea for you to do the same?

Successful people are not necessarily smarter or better than others. They have just discovered the underlying principles of success and begun applying them before others have. Now you can catch up, and faster than you might have thought possible. When you begin practicing these laws every day, in everything you do, you will begin to make progress faster and easier than ever before. There are really no limits except the ones you place on yourself by your own thinking.

Source: Brian Tracy, The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, (San Francisco, 2000).