There’s a quote from Benjamin Franklin. It states,

Energy and persistence conquers all things.

Today we’re looking at four qualities to help you be persistent. Number one, how persistence predicts success. I was researching persistence to see if I had what it takes to start a business. In reality, only 20 to 25% of startup companies make it past the first year. Small business failures are high. People cannot take on the demands of what comes with owning a business. As a small business owner, you must be able to remain optimistic and tough if you are going to be able to succeed through the hard times in building your business. Many entrepreneurs have had hard times and work through it to build successful businesses because they remained persistent throughout the hard times. You have to keep going no matter the obstacles you meet. You must dig deep. I’ve always said that I may not have had the best grades during my school years, but I could probably work anyone under the table with the work ethic instilled in me at a young age.

When I look back at growing up. My mother rarely sat idle. She was always accomplishing something, whether it be mending a sock, cooking laundry, or knitting. And if she wasn’t doing something with her hands, she was reading for information on health and wellness. My mother graduated with a degree in home economics and an elementary education. She was always making a house of home. During the holidays, it was always decorated with the latest trimmings and then the smell of warm holiday treats to accompany the decorations. Warmth and love surrounded everyone who walked inside. She was persistent in doing a good job staying on task, even when it seemed pointless. She also taught her children that persistence is the ability to adjust and adapt. Number two, now we’re going to look at mindset and attitude. My mother always had the mindset of being very positive. She never looked backward with frustration, but it was always looking forward and wanting to grow and to teach others. I think this is where I get my persistence.

Most would say that working hard and effort beats talent every time. But I think it’s how you perform and the results you produce without hard working commitment. How you complete the goal and push beyond being persistent is about looking at what you can do today to make yourself better for tomorrow. It isn’t persistence. It is the persistence in us that helps us put one foot in front of the other, day after day, week after week. Persistence is being able to stay focused when the day does not go as planned. Something will disturb your routine, and you won’t be able to continue what you had scheduled. This happens every single day. Persistence is being able to revise and make changes. The ability to adjust and adapt. Negative thoughts will always be there, but you don’t have to get overwhelmed by them. Keep focusing on taking actions to finish your task. Make a list of benefits and how great you feel when you are persistent, and remind yourself of this when things aren’t going well. It’s important to have a vision and a plan of how you’re going to reach your goal, and doing small tasks each day will get you there.

Number three, don’t be afraid to fail and start again. Part of learning is failing. We’re all going to fail. Failure is only a fail if you don’t learn anything from it. Those who push past do so by getting up, dusting themselves off, and learning from the past. The faster we learn this, the better we will grow and push beyond ourselves to make each day better. If you don’t fail, you’re not pushing yourself to do something difficult, something new and challenging. What are you doing today? To push yourself, to get yourself out of your comfort zone and make yourself do something you don’t want to do. For myself, in the past, it’s been eating right and working out. Eating right used to be a challenge until I found it was that I was sensitive to certain foods, and this was what was causing terrible, consistent headaches and migraines. Once I found out it was the food, it is not hard for me to resist those foods and I keep what I can eat ready and available to consciously choose the healthy version for me.

So instead of dwelling on what I cannot eat, I internalize the lesson and I move on. And I move on to what I can eat and what I am grateful to feel energized and that I don’t have to rely on medications. Failure has a great way of showing us what direction we shouldn’t go, and we should never stop learning from those failures. In starting my business, there were a million different directions to go. There were a million possibilities from the start. And the internet is overwhelming, but each misstep helps me to get closer to the target and get pointed in the right direction. I am still faced with making decisions each day, and I have no idea for sure which is the better choice. But you have to start somewhere and not making a choice is not moving forward. Don’t be afraid to fail.

Number four is to develop discipline and habit. Discipline is the road to forming a habit. Discipline will help you stay on course and create a habit to set a goal. And how you are going to change will help you see the bigger picture. Why do you need to change? How are you going to change and adopt this habit and adapt to this habit? How will you be determined and why? It’s important you’re not just positive, but that you have a growth mindset. Find positive people who are successful and study their habits and model them. Remember, developing discipline and habit doesn’t just happen. It takes time and it takes persistence. J.K. Rowling had many refusals before she published her first Harry Potter novel. Reading autobiographies of people who are persistent can encourage you and give you insights. When getting my workout routine in place as I got older, it was hard to have the energy and time to fit in a workout. I always found an excuse for putting it off and never doing it. Working out is still a challenge for me as I still have some issues to overcome, but I always feel better after I’ve worked out. I find that attending an ongoing group workout or attending a workout that has other people in it helps me to create a habit of going, and those people help me to be accountable.

And just being around that infectious drive of other athletes working out helps me to create discipline and habit. The class teacher is always giving us advice about health and what we need to be doing, and healthy reminders and why we are there. And when leaving the class, I feel better and motivated. I feel motivated to complete other obstacles. I go so often that I don’t even think about if I should go. It has become a habit, and sometimes I will drive up to the workout facility and think, wow, I really don’t want to go today, but I’m already here. I had gone through all the actions of habitually getting ready at a certain time, leaving it a certain time driving, and now I’m here, so let’s get this done. Abraham Lincoln quoted “discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most to achieve success.” You first have to believe you can do it the way you think affects the way you behave. By believing in yourself and being persistent, you automatically increase the chance of being successful.

So the four steps of what it takes to be persistent. And we’re going to recap, number one, how persistent you are predicts your success. Number two, do you have the right mindset and attitude? Number three, don’t be afraid to fail and start again. And number four develop discipline and habits to be persistent. In closing, let’s leave with Benjamin Franklin’s quote: energy, persistence. Conquer all things for their working with the challenges of family or building a business. Resilience is key. Continue to choose a positive mindset. Persistence. Persist through disruptions because we’re always going to have them and view failures as stepping stones to growth. Success stems from belief, persistence, and positive habits. As Abraham Lincoln said, discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want. Most believe that persisting your thoughts shape your path to success. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Until next time, keep persisting and keep thriving.