How to Persevere – Daniel Kosmala

 

One of the more difficult lessons I have learned in the last year and a half has been perseverance. I have lived most of my life without much perseverance with a few exceptions which were dating/marrying my wife, playing baseball, and playing piano. Almost everything else in my life has fizzled out after a certain amount of time.

• Played organized basketball for 2 seasons
• Played organized tennis for 1 season
• Joined philosophy club for 1 month in high school
• Played rugby for 1 month in college
• Marching band for 4ish years
• Got into video games for a year or so
• Taught myself to play a few different instruments and then stopped playing
• Learned to cook and then stopped for a while

I think you get the picture. I start things and just never keep them going. I just begin to neglect them and over time lose the skill all together. It’s something we are all guilty of. How many of you can remember desperately wanting a specific toy as a child? It was the only thing you could think about. You asked to get one for your birthday, Christmas, or both, and finally it happened. You got what you wanted. That toy was the best thing ever. It lived up to all the hype in your mind, at least for a little while. And then it lost some of it’s luster. Suddenly you became more interested in dating the girl down the street than flying your remote-controlled plane. Your perseverance to continue playing just disappeared. It was on to bigger and better things.

Unfortunately, some of us carry those habits into our adult lives, never knowing how to truly stick with something and see it through. Those old toys sat collecting dust for years and you kept it there for sentimental reasons, instead of cleaning it off to give to a neighbor or thrift store. It happens in marriages, jobs, and hobbies everywhere. We do not know how to persevere. We just want what is easy.

Perseverance takes work. Hard work. 

But, here is one way that you can persevere beginning today:

• Pick something you love
  • Do it. Go all-in and commit to succeeding regardless of how long it will take or how hard it will be.
    • When things start to suck, you’re exhausted, you want to give it up, you want to find something else that doesn’t take up as much time or effort, and you can’t bear the thought of doing it anymore…Keep going. 

That’s it.

How many times do you think Hank Aaron or Ken Griffey Jr. said at any point before they made it to the big leagues, “I think I’m done taking batting practice. I’ve hit enough balls. I don’t want to do it anymore. I’ll just rely on what I’ve already done to keep hitting well.”?

Probably never. They might have thought it and I’m sure they considered quitting a time or two, but did they? We wouldn’t know their names if they had. The same goes for your job, your business, your marriage, and your hobbies. Don’t quit when things suck. If you are going to quit, only do it when you are at the top. At least then you can say you tried. If you quit at the bottom, you will forever be haunted by what could have been.

All good things have rough spots.

There will be plenty of days where you don’t want to wake up and go pay the bills for your business or schedule social media posts or talk with a client on the phone. But, if you do not do those things, it could end up being the day you get a tax break, or some celebrity tweets about your business and boosts sales by 200%, or a client signs the dotted line on a lucrative deal. Those days will come too, but only if you trudge through the swamps of bad times. These times happen to all of us.

When you feel like quitting, go to your best source of encouragement. It could be a friend, spouse,  business partner, or even just the ‘happy guy’ in the office, but don’t quit without first seeking to be lifted up on whatever has got you down.