Don’t Stop, Never Stop Until You Get There

Failing at your attempt to do something can be very gut wrenching. Only if you let it and think of it as a lesson of, “well, that didn’t work, let me try it another way.”

None of us would be sitting here with the ability to use our laptops and any other of our favorite devices we use with electricity if Benjamin Franklin had not have tried a million times to get it right. Well, maybe not a million, but you get my point.

Persistence is what kept him going. I’m sure he knew with every cell in his body that he was onto something, but just kept missing it until, one day, he finally figured it out.

We have to be that way in, ‘the things we want.’ I’m going to add, ‘the things we desire strongly.’ What I’m trying to say is this, being persistent in something that has a strong desire will eventually be accomplished.

I see it almost like a craving. You crave the thrill of accomplishing the goal. You make a plan, research, read, listen to whatever you can get your hands on and plan how you are going to accomplish the goal.

Deciding the ‘why’, you want something is the absolute key. Because, ultimately, that’s the drive that will keep you going.

What I’ve been doing for my persistence is to decide why I want something, write it down, create a graphic organizer, mind map, etc, on what/why I want it. Include the research I’ve acquired on the desire, and make a plan.

Sometimes the plan works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But either way I now have new research. What worked and what didn’t. Take what didn’t work, tweak it a bit and try again.

I keep trying and trying and trying. As an educator and a parent, I’ve learned that consistency is what makes humans work on autopilot. Almost like Pavlov’s dog’s conditioning. The consistency makes the persistence work.

Here’s the consistence. Desire => Plan => Try => Achieve or Failure =>

Plan => Try => Plan =>. (You get the plan

You see the pattern? Failures are what you use to figure out what happened, it could be a minor change or something that’s a total 180 degree change, regardless, You know what didn’t work.

It’s easy to live in your comfort zone of thinking, ‘well I tried, it didn’t work, I’m not trying again.’

Again, we’d all be in the dark if Franklin had had that attitude, (well maybe someone else would have came along and figured it out), but regardless, you get the point.

I have to ask you though, are you really comfortable in your comfort zone? If you are then why are you trying to do something different? You’ve already decided you are not comfortable there, and tried one time, you might as well keep going until something shakes.

If you don’t you’ll always wonder what if, and hating yourself if, no when someone else gets there before you because you decided you wanted to quit and give up.

I saw this IG post once, loved it and reposted. “Spaceships don’t have rearview mirrors.”

…Well, they don’t. For a reason. You’re blasting off into your desire, you do not have time to look back.

Key points:

1. Desire
2. Know why you want the desire
3. Make a plan
4. Execute your plan
5. Fix parts of your plan that didn’t work
6. Rinse and repeat