Close your eyes for a moment and take a deep breath. Inventory your life. What do you wish you wouldn’t have quit on?
Is there a wall in front of you right now – today? Is there something or someone you are thinking you will just quit on?
Have you heard of Liz Murray? Lifetime did a movie about her called Homeless to Harvard. After a pretty hideous childhood and a homeless adolescence, she looked around her one day at the people passing by and thought, “No one around me has anymore than I do. I am gifted and able. What am I going to do with it?”
Take 3 minutes to hear her remarkable story here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZSXHjXgA
Endurance feeds and sustains every other great attribute in your life. If you have vision, courage, desire, a great work ethic, honesty, integrity, and determination, they will all be lifted to higher levels if you apply perseverance.
You have heard of Winston Churchill’s famous encouragement and admonishment to “Never, never, never, never, never give up!” If it is important you gotta fight for it! Endure. Persevere. Press on!
How? By learning and disciplining yourself to crash through quitting points. We all have them. They may be professional, personal or moral, or points in our relationships. If you quit a job in anger the result is unemployment, an unsatisfactory referral, and demeaning or rationalized thoughts about our own behavior. If you leave a marriage in pain or frustration, the result is heartache, kids without a parent in their home, and loss and loneliness. Over time we become dejected and defeated people.
It’s also true that just because you get to a stopping point, you don’t have to stop. You can keep going. If your goal is to run 2 miles, you don’t have to stop when you get there. Keep running! If your boss asks for one really innovative idea, come up with 2 or 3. Keep going! January 1 I committed to no sugar(particularly chocolate) for 21 days. When I got there I kept going and got to 27 – and you know what? I quit just because I had gone “long enough” and more than I set out to do. There was no reason to quit and lots of good health and self-discipline reasons to persevere. Do you own the weapon of perseverance in your arsenal? If you are a person of faith, employ it! With God all things are possible and nothing is impossible.
Look again at the inventory you took and ask yourself, “What has quitting cost me?”
Now close your eyes again and visualize that wall in front of you. You are standing in front of it with your hard hat, goggles, and a massive sledge hammer. Go at it and don’t quit until you have crashed through!
I would be honored to bang away with you and coach you to a crash through! Call 602.626.8036 or e-mail beth.madigan@cox.net to begin TODAY!
Blessings,
Beth
