Dr. Peter J. Weiss

I know that things get hard some­times.  It hap­pens to me too.

Per­haps you’re try­ing to make a change for the bet­ter and see­ing some progress when you hit a road­block.  You’re stuck.  Or worse, you’re back­slid­ing.  You start to won­der, “Will this ever work?”  Sound famil­iar?

I feel your pain.  You’re frus­trated and per­haps even a lit­tle depressed.  It’s all so hard.  It’s all so com­pli­cated.  Maybe, but let me sim­plify that moment.

Right then, in your dis­tress, there is only one deci­sion you need to make, “Do I quit or do I keep at it?”  Decide to keep at it.  That’s the secret to suc­cess.  Just don’t quit.

Of course many, per­haps most, peo­ple will quit.  Be dif­fer­ent.  Choose to per­sist, to keep com­ing back, to stay the course.  You can do it.  You haven’t failed if you’re still try­ing.  Choos­ing to per­sist leads to suc­cess.

Now that doesn’t mean you should keep doing the same exact thing that hasn’t been work­ing.  If you’ve been hit­ting a brick wall, you may need to alter your approach.  Go around it, not through it.

But first, choose to per­sist in your effort.  Be clear that you are not quit­ting.  Only then are you men­tally and emo­tion­ally ready to ana­lyze what went wrong and appre­ci­ate what went right.

I could write a lot more about the power of per­sis­tence, but no one has ever said it bet­ter than Calvin Coolidge.  Let me close with his words:

Noth­ing in the world can take the place of Per­sis­tence. Tal­ent will not; noth­ing is more com­mon than unsuc­cess­ful men with tal­ent. Genius will not; unre­warded genius is almost a proverb. Edu­ca­tion will not; the world is full of edu­cated dere­licts. Per­sis­tence and deter­mi­na­tion alone are omnipo­tent. The slo­gan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the prob­lems of the human race.

– Calvin Coolidge