Consistency & Perseverance May Not Lead You To Success
You need more to it than just being consistent.
Imagine yourself to be a three-year-old child. You are asked to draw a perfect square and then paint it blue.
What are the necessary steps to complete the task?
First, you must know what a square is and how it looks like. Once you are done with that, you can’t just draw a square using a pen free-hand. The lines won’t be straight and the square won’t be perfect.
That’s when you discover a scale (ruler) — either by yourself or with someone’s help. After you are able to draw the square, the next step is to identify which color is called “blue”. Only then you will be able to fill the square with the color as was asked.
For you, drawing a square and painting it blue makes no sense because you know it all. But for that 3-year-old child, it is a new task.
As you can see, every task you have done till now requires you to learn and keep building on the knowledge you already possess.
Let’s say, for some reason the child decides not to learn by himself or ask his teacher how to draw the line straight. Despite being consistently trying over and over and over again, he will never be able to get the line 100% straight if he decides to draw it with free-hand.
Consistency and perseverance are meaningless for a person who has no intention of gaining additional knowledge if and when it’s required.
You can replace this simple example with a more complex one as you desire, the point I wanted to make will remain the same.
Now, you may ask, who doesn’t learn? Well, when it comes to learning how to draw a square, you are sorted. But what if you need to learn that additional programming language to get the job you desire or the French language that you need to know over your English speaking skills? Do you feel the resistance within you? How many of us do you think actually learn that additional skill thoroughly when it’s needed?
Our mind is weird. It knows that we need to do a specific thing to achieve something. But when it comes to action, it resists. After 2 weeks of effort, we start to feel sluggish and most of us give up.
Do you understand now where consistency and perseverance come into play?
It’s only when there is true willingness to learn, consistency and perseverance will get you through.
So, the first question you should ask yourself — are you willing to learn despite all the mental resistance from within?
And make this point clear in your head, you won’t achieve the success you deserve just because you worked hard. If you be the child who tries to draw the line straight a million times free-hand, you may come close, but you will never be able to make it perfect.
I would like to hear your thoughts on this. Let me know in the comments below.
See you tomorrow. :)
Regards.
