It may seem strange to start to a Personal Development Blog post, but let’s start by quoting 50 Cent – yeah, the rapper 50 Cent – who said “Most people can’t handle boredom. That means they can’t stay on one thing until they get good at it. And they wonder why they’re unhappy.”
The big problem is we live in a world where we want to have what we want right now. When we’re hungry, we want fast food, if we’re feeling down we want instant gratification – hence the proliferation of so-called anti social behaviour brought on by (and I quote several teenagers here) going out at night with the sole intention of getting drunk – hence the success of pornography on the web – hence the rise in the use of all sorts of drugs, soft and hard. At the same time, television is teaching us that anyone can be an overnight success – whether it’s American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent or the X-Factor, we’ve a whole new generation who think that you don’t have to work at and persevere with something to be successful. No wonder Usher recently said that such shows were slowly killing the music industry.
However, this article is not about drugs or TV – it’s about success and how to achieve it.
just a state of mind and there’s a vast difference between hard work and a labour of love. On the other hand, if you’re bored easily or quickly put off, then almost anything that you turn your hand to will become hard work. And once it becomes hard work, it’s so easy to try something else that will give you the instant gratification that you’re looking for. So it is that so few people truly succeed. To succeed you’re going to have to be single-minded and ruthless with yourself (not with others) in terms of sticking to your desired outcome. Madrid University’s Business School recently published data that indicates that highly successful business people are people that have failed and tried again and again and again. The same information also suggests that only one in ten thousand people will, having failed three or four times, try again.
Even in the course of our everyday lives, we fall on our face again and again. You might be trying to achieve the kind of clarity of mind that will create your success but, once again, your default state of “I’m bored” mind kicks in and your best efforts come to nothing. Of course, our best efforts will inevitably come to nothing if we don’t pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again – this is the secret of success.
This piece started by quoting 50 Cent – I’d like to finish by quoting Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States who stated: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”.
And what if you fail or think that you’re a failure? Well, failure is simplya further opportunity to persevere.
Tags: Achieve Your Goals, Goal Setting, Personal Development, Personal Success, Self Improvement