"If you feel like giving up,
remember why you held on for long in the first place”- Anonymous
Monaliza once held a
bunch of keys in her palm with the intension of opening a door. Unfortunately,
she could not identify the particular key that would open that door. She tried
the first key only to find out that it couldn’t fit into the key-hole. She
tried the second which fitted alright but could not turn. She tried the third
which also failed. After trying the first four keys out of the nine on the
bunch only to discover their incompatibility with the key hole of the door, she
turned her back to the door and departed. She couldn’t get access to the
treasure she sought for again!
Have you ever
experienced that before? What do you do if the first few keys failed you? Go
on. There are more keys on the bunch. Try again and again to the last key. The
last key on the bunch may be the one to unlock your door of opportunities.
Every achiever had faced
challenges before. Whether you explore into the affairs of religion, politics,
leadership, and even studentship, you will have your own respective share and
peculiar versions of challenges. These challenges do nothing that trying to
stop you from attaining an expected end. It takes a personal affirmation
through a strong will to continue and reach the top without keeping long on the
half-way!
Henry Ward Beecher led
us to the fact when he confirmed the difference between perseverance and
obstinacy. He said “the difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that, one comes
from a strong will and the other from a strong won’t”. Both are
important to an achiever. Perseverance says “I will endure to the end” and
obstinacy adds “I won’t turn back; if you are on my way, you have only two
options. Either you give me a way to pass or you remain and I will bore a hole
through you and find my way”!
With a strong will not
to quit, you say to your obstacles; “if I lose everything I have and I still
get me, you are still in trouble because am coming back with full vim”.
Perseverance according to Walter Elliot “is not a long race. It is rather many short
races run one after the other”. Better to rest in between the short
races of Elliot, and continue ever after, than to quit you “long race” you
imagine lies ahead of you. Though you get tired the more you run, the more you
run, the closer you get to your accomplishments. The nearer you are to success,
the harder the journey becomes because more energy had been invested into the
race already! Remember always that “perseverance is the hard work you do after
you get tired of doing the hard work you already did”, says Newt
Gingrich.
“Many of life’s failures are people
who did not realize how closed they were to success when they gave up”- Thomas
Edison
It is so futile and
wasteful for one to give up when the time is almost up for him to celebrate his
success. In life, when you feel like giving up, just remember why you held on
for so long in the first place. “Winners”, Vince Lombardi said “are not
quitters” and I am very sure that no quitter has ever won. Don’t be discouraged
in anything because the last key among the bunch may be the one to unlock your
door of opportunities.
When drops of rain quit
falling, they cannot make holes in the rock. Persistence and endurance makes
you leave impacts on earth. This is how Lucretius put it; “the drop of rain makes a hole in
the stone not by violence, but by oft falling”. How often have you
tried stepping up against the challenges you encounter as barriers? How many
holes so far have you created in those barriers to have your way out? It’s not
too late!
It is real sometimes
that the destination to success seems far, but a determined person would say
although it seemed so, he is closer to it now that yesterday! On the way to
discover your success treasures, you may open the door of opportunities with
the last key on the bunch, only to find another door inside the opened door which
also needs to be opened before you get your gifts and this can only be
actualized with persistence. Never, “never give in, never, never never, in
nothing; never give up in except to convictions of honour and good sense” –
Winston Church Hill
You may ask “how does a
person give up”? “Giving up” is different from “changing”. You need a mind
change of method if your method only produces wrong results. It’s like using
the wrong formula with the intent of getting a right answer which is highly
impossible. “Change” is one of the
beneficial opportunities “failure” can offer anyone. By changing your mind, you
can tell yourself that you can try again using another approach. This is
“change” not “giving up”. A person is said to give up when he stops doing what
he was sent to do without marking the summit of it, as evidenced by unattained
goals.
There
are many factors that contribute to “giving up” on a dream. They are challenges
that a determined aspiring achiever should bear in mind and overcome.
The following are seven (7) main reasons why
people become quitters;
Poor preparation:
A
task poorly prepared for will only do the best that a lorry does when it is out
of fuel. Or fair enough, a fuelled vehicle with the driver’s feet on the brake
pads. A poorly prepared person is linked to the five (5) foolish virgins that
the scripture talked about in Matthew 25 who were compelled to give up because
of unpreparedness. To prepared means to set aside points, values, deadlines and
clear lines of action as far as goals are concerned. A usual saying reads; “Prior
preparation produces peak performance” and in the same vain we can say “proper
preparation prevents poor performance”. Poor preparation leads to the
following three (3) points;
- 1. Pointlessness: A person without a clear definition of goals and purpose will have no clear action to take.
- 2. Procrastination: A person who lacks preparation extends tasks into the future since he meets things that must but dealt with by well thought schedules.
- 3. Perplexed mood: Once with an undefined goal, one will be perplexed since he will not know of where to start and where to end.
In
every pursuit, prepare before you set off since there is only a thin line that
exists between success and failure. That thin line is “Preparation”.
Lack of determination:
“The
main reason why most people fail is because they tend to look at how far they
still have to go instead of how far they have come”- Anonymous. Looking at the journey ahead, people are
likely to quit on comparing the number of potholes they jumped over to the
number they need to jump over again! At a point, all unseen voices will mass up
in one tune to tell you; “give up”! Beware of those voices because the same
voices will tell you “thumb up” when you at last persist to triumph.
Inability to pay the cost:
Most
people also quit because, they are unable to pay the cost of fulfilling their dreams
and eventually, their purposes. Most of these people think success is as easy
as a night dream. Sorry to say “success is not bagged on the silver platter”.
Neither is it day dreamt. Rather, it is bargained for and worked for and paid
for in the expected currency. You can’t be an achiever without determination,
persistence, endurance and persistence. These qualities differentiate a dream
worker from a mere dreamer.
Fear of competition:
Competition
never kills because it has never killed anyone before. People are easily
defeated when they see others doing what they can do in a far better way. They
however reject all hopes that they can make it to that level. If you think like
this, you will forever be a quitter. Start in a small way, but let the sky be
below your limit.
Lack of Change:
To
succeed, you need to switch onto a better attitude, a better value, a better
relationship and better goals. Some people are willing to make indelible impacts
in their fields of endeavor, but their current attitude cannot accommodate
success. All they need is to reconstruct their parlous estates and they will
welcome success in a ceremonial way. It’s only two things; either you change or
you quit. “Decide what you want. Decide what you are willing to exchange for it”
(HL Hunt). You don’t need money or meals to change yourself; “what
is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself”,
said Abraham Maslow.
A Search for pleasure:
It
is unfortunate that people are more conscious of associating success with
happiness. Happiness may be listed among the features of success anyway, but
cannot be the success itself. In any case, over consciousness of pleasurable
entertainments lead people into premature spendthrift folly and this leaves them
broke. To them, all about success is “rise and chill”. People with this mental
attitude only resort to withdrawal when things seem though!
Wrong definition of failure:
People
who hold wrong perceptions about failure can never bear success badges on their
chests. Dictionary defines failure as “lack of success” or “a person who is
unsuccessful”, no controversy. That is from the dictionary anyway, but to great
achievers, this definition is incomplete until you add words of hope to it and
these words of hope make failure seem beneficial. To great achievers, failure
is an opportunity, or a privilege, or a credit to really put you on course.
Henry Ford proposed that “failure is simply the opportunity to begin
again, and this time, more intelligently”.
The
greatest concern of Abraham Lincoln about failure is “whether you are content
with your failure?” This question will either make you to quit or to try again depending
on the answer you would provide. Lincoln suggested “it is better to try and fail
than not to try at all”. Winston Churchill agreed by declaring, “Success
consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm”.
Dare to fail and you will succeed at the end of your trial.
“Every
failure brings with it the seed of an equivalent success”- Napoleon Hill
“Just
because you fail once doesn’t mean you’re gonna fail at everything”- Marilyn
Monroe
“It
is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed”- Theodore
Roosevelt
“Only
those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly”- Robert F. Kennedy
As
an aspiring achiever, you need to have many dreams and “if one dream should fall and
break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those piece and
begin again”, said Flavia Weedn.
Don’t listen to mockeries and insults from people. Their attitude shouldn’t
make you to give up on your dreams. Rather mount the shoulders of giants and
you will see farther than them!
When
it seems all hopes are lost, you can still go. Franklin Roosevelt said “when
you get to the end of the rope, tie a knot and hung on”. Get something
to stick yourself to, the knot is enough. If you don’t stick or hung on
something valuable, you can’t get there; “consider the postage stamp. Its usefulness
consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there”, said
Josh Billings.
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