Perseverance

How do we achieve our goals? We must persevere. Or persist. Or stubbornly stick to it. We must refuse to give up. If you give up you fail. If you experience a momentary lapse, you have not failed, if you get back on the wagon. What I’m trying to say is, if you decide I’m going to do this no matter what gets in my way and no matter how long it takes, then success is guaranteed. If you get discouraged and give up after encountering any barrier at all failure is guaranteed. That is called self-sabotage and that is what ruins most of our plans. So if you make up your mind that you will achieve this goal, persevere no matter what, success is guaranteed.

The other thing is, that there are different ways to say the same thing. I may say he is infuriating, or he is stubborn. But what if I say, he is persistent, instead. That’s not quite so infuriating, is it? Persistence is good. Stubbornness is not.

Like I told my student last night you may look at someone as abnormal, weird, strange or crazy. But how about if you say instead, exceptional or outstanding or... eccentric. I had a Sociology professor who remarked that rich people are called "eccentric," but poor people are called "crazy." At the time I thought it was a wise and profound observation. I still do.


Persistence and perseverance are synonyms, like persistent and perseverant. Wait, there is no such word as "perseverant," the adjective form of perseverance. "Persevere" sounds so serious. My dictionary says that perseverance is more admirable than persistence, but I disagree. I like the word persistent because it is more neutral. It can be either good or bad. Tenacious and steadfast are other synonyms for persistent.