Essential skills in life: Perseverance

“If you are going through hell, keep going.” ― Winston S. Churchill

“March ou Creve” the Foreign Legion is telling to their members. Continue to walk or die. A simple message to transmit to your soldiers. It will keep them motivated and, more importantly, it will keep them alive.

But does it work in our day to day life too? I think it does.
How many projects died, because people stopped working on them?
How many great ideas died because people stopped believing in them?

We die because we our hearts stop. Just like our inner self. It dies when we stop working on it, when we stop believing.

This is why in life we have to endure and persevere. To march on until we reach the goal we intended to reach. We walk up the mountain until we conquer the peak.

I was reading a page in my journal from two years ago and I saw the same ideas and dream that I have now. Back then I wanted the same things as now. My dream remained the same, I didn’t achieve it, but I’m still working on it. I’m willing to work with all my power until I will see it done.

Why is perseverance important in life?

Because with perseverance you get things done. You will never finish anything if you stop. If don’t conquer the obstacles laid down in front of you, there will always be something left to be done. This is why you have to persevere.

You will reach mastery. Perseverance means doing the same thing a million times if necessary. Do you think if you do the same thing for a million times you will be considered a master? I think you do. I think you do, my friend.

You will conquer life. Did I cross the line? No, I didn’t. I will say it again: Perseverance will lead you to conquer life, your life to be more exact. We all have our demons, but if you are going forward, while carrying with you a ton of problems, you have conquered life.

How to persevere?

That’s a good question. Because it’s easier to give up, rather than go forward.

But there might be some tricks to keep you going.

Remember why you are doing it. Why did you start at the beginning? What made you walk down this path. What’s your end goal? Remember about this and it will give you the strength to go forward.
While persevering, you have to have patience as well. And as I mentioned before, this isn’t an easy thing either.

Read. Every day if possible. It will keep your mind fresh and focused. Read about the things you want to do. Read about the masters of the area you want to succeed. Learn from their mistakes, learn about their dilemmas. Don’t try to think of new ways, learn from your ancestors. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, but learn how it was done.

Perseverance is very hard. It’s a state of mind, that sometimes it takes you to hell. You will want to yell and curse all the gods, but you will walk down the path you laid down for you. Because only like this you will achieve greatness.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” ― Confucius

Image source:Pixabay

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This is Day 9 of the 30 days writing challenge during January 2017 launched by @dragosroua. If you want to join the challenge, here's the introductory article.

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Essential skills in life is a series of articles regarding skills that I consider everyone should try to develop them. Some of them I have, some of them I'm working on. Please follow me @sstefan if you want to check the next post of the series.