Perseverance
“You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.” — Eric Thomas
This was originally posted on NiqueDaSneak.com
I’m afraid that my generation is becoming soft. I see a lot of people around me giving up on the things they call their “dreams.” They will give their all into a project or idea. If it fails, they are so devastated they never consider it again. Every once in a while my mind will return to that place of fear; all of the self doubt and worry. No one is perfect. Even the strongest among us sometimes become scared; scared of the future; scared of the uncertainty…
I have been struggling with this idea of perseverance since for some time. Somehow, no matter how good of a situation I am in, my mind will wander to that negative place. I tell myself things like I’m not qualified to do this, or my dreams are too gigantic to accomplish. I have psyched myself out of doing things I like or want to do. I’ve always had this idea in my head that for whatever reason I am not good enough. I’ve spent countless hours in bed worried that my life wouldn't amount to anything. I’ve held onto the fear of not living up to my own expectations for too long.
While fear can sometimes enter our mind, we should not let it negatively affect our actions. If you study some of the ‘greats’ of our time, you will notice that at some point they all had to just suck it up and grind:
· JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’ Stone while on welfare. It was rejected by 12 publishers before it was purchased.
· Before Microsoft, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard, and his first attempt in business failed with the company Traf-O-Data.
· Tyler Perry brought himself out of homelessness in Atlanta to become a household name in the United States.
Whenever I go to that dark place, I am reminded of my days playing high school basketball. One of the things my coaches drilled into us was this idea of mental toughness, or mind over matter. There were so many times when I didn’t think I could run another sprint, or lift anymore weight. My young mind defaulted to becoming defeated or creating excuses to why I couldn’t. At 23 years old, it feels like so long ago when I was in that environment. Over the years I spent in the Wayne High School Basketball Program, my mind was conditioned to go beyond what I thought was possible. They challenged my physical limits as well as my mental.
I will be honest. There are things going on in my life today that make me want to quit. I have flirted with the idea of just packing everything up and leaving Cincinnati behind. But just as quickly as my mind starts to go down that road, all of the time and preparation I have put in comes into focus. If I want to quit now, then I probably should have quit 5 years ago when I first moved to this city. Being mentally tough does not mean that you don’t have these negative thoughts. Mental toughness gives you the means to persevere through all of the obstacles you face, whether they are internal or external.
As a black man in America, my family’s path to this point is rooted in slavery; talk about perseverance… They laid the path for me up to this point, stone by stone. I have no choice but to move forward. When negative thoughts begin to cloud the vision I have, I think about all those that came before me; the true dreamers. I’ve realized that the my ancestors were dreaming about my life and my possibilities. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil. I have no choice but to find a way. I owe it to everyone who sacrificed for me to be here now.
“He who says he can and he who says he can’t are both usually right.”
— Confucius
Faith and belief are so crucial to anyone’s success. If you don’t believe in anything else in this world, believe and have faith in yourself. Self confidence is the best way to persevere through hard times, especially if you can recognize the time and preparation you have put into your goals. I challenge you to look at your individual situations and know that you are not alone. If it feels like no one else is struggling like you, just know that I have yet again returned to the page out of desperation. Use your passions and skills to rise above your problems and become the person you were sent here to become. Believe in yourself and trust your struggle.
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” — Steve Jobs
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