read it and write down everything to implement Chapter 7
Self-Discipline and Persistence
“Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a
hurry. One such attempt in 10,000 may succeed. These
are fearful odds.”
—BENJAMIN DISRAELI
 
 
 
P
ersistence is self-discipline in action. Your ability to persist in
the face of all setbacks and temporary failures is essential to
success in life.
Napoleon Hill said, “Persistence is to the character of man as
carbon is to steel.” The primary reason for success is
persistence, and, likewise, the primary reason for failure is lack
of persistence, quitting too soon.
There is a direct link between self-discipline and self-esteem.
Each time you discipline yourself to do what you should do,
when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not, your
self-esteem increases. This why there is direct relationship
between self-esteem and persistence. Each time you persist and
force yourself to continue on, even when you feel like quitting,
your self-esteem goes up.
Each act of self-discipline strengthens every other act of
self-discipline. Every act of persistence strengthens every other
act of persistence. When you discipline yourself to persist, over
and over, you like and respect yourself more and more. You
become stronger and more confident. Eventually, you become
unstoppable.
The Reward of Persistence
Persistence is its own reward. Every time you force yourself to
persist on a task, whether it is large or small, you feel happier
and better about yourself.
When you go the extra mile and do more than you are paid
for or more than is expected, your self-esteem goes up. You
feel more powerful and in greater control of your life. In your
career, when you go the extra mile you put yourself on the
side of the angels. The primary difference between winners and
losers in life is simple: Winners never quit, and quitters never
win.
You can increase your ability to persist by talking to yourself
positively. Say these words: “I am unstoppable!” Before you
begin any major undertaking, preprogram yourself by telling
yourself, “I never give up.”
Before you can achieve anything worthwhile in life, you have to
pass “the persistence test.” This is usually a “snap quiz” sprung
on you unexpectedly with no warning. You suddenly face a
major setback, problem, temporary failure, or even a complete
disaster. When this happens, remind yourself that this is the
“testing time.” This is when you demonstrate what you are
really made of. This is when you show yourself and others the
strength of your character and your true determination to
succeed.
Your Ability to Respond
Your ability to respond effectively to setbacks—your level of
“response-ability”—is the measure of your readiness to succeed.
When you experience a major setback or problem, you will feel
temporarily stunned. This feeling is very much like a punch in
the emotional solar plexus. You will be stopped for a few
seconds or a few minutes. During this period, you will often
feel discouraged or experience self-pity. You will say, “Why
me?”
However, it is not how far you fall that counts, but rather how
high you bounce. Your aim is to bounce back as quickly as
possible. Resilience in the face of unexpected reversals is vital to
long-term success. Remember the warrior’s creed: “I will lay
me down to bleed awhile, and then rise and fight again.”
Don’t be surprised, shocked, or set back when things go
wrong. Your best-laid plans will often fall apart. Instead, expect
disappointments and setbacks as a part of life. Take a deep
breath, pick up the pieces, and continue onward.
Optimism Gives You Resilience
The most important quality you need for success and
persistence is optimism. This is a boundless confidence in
yourself and your ability to ultimately succeed. To remain
optimistic, you must control and discipline your thinking when
things go wrong. Refuse to feel sorry for yourself. Remember,
you are not a victim. You are an adult, and you are in
charge of your own life. You are doing what you have freely
chosen to do. Setbacks come with the territory. They are
merely speed bumps on the road to success.
Refuse to blame others or make excuses. When you complain
or blame other people, it just makes you feel and sound petty
and small, and, what’s worse, it takes away your personal
power. Whenever you criticize or complain, it makes you feel
weaker and reduces your ability to deal effectively with the
situation. Instead, greet every setback by repeating, “I am
responsible.”
Look for the reasons why you are responsible for what
happened rather than trying to pass off the blame onto other
people. No excuses.
Be Proactive Versus Reactive
Resolve to focus on the solution and what can be done
now
, rather than on what happened and who’s to blame.
Think in terms of the actions you can take to resolve the
situation rather than what went wrong and who is to blame.
To remain optimistic, look for the good in every situation.
When you look for something good, you will always find
something good. Furthermore, while you’re looking for
something good, because your conscious mind can hold only
one thought at a time, you will automatically become positive,
optimistic, and back in full control.
Seek the valuable lesson in every problem or difficulty.
Every setback you face contains one or more lessons that have
been sent to you to help you be more successful in the future.
The difference between successes and failures is simple: Failures
feel sorry for themselves when things go wrong, whereas
successful people look for the valuable lesson they can learn
that will help them in the future.
Look for the Gift
Normal Vincent Peale used to say, “When God wants to send
you a gift, he wraps it up in a problem. The bigger the gift
that God wants to send you, the bigger the problem he wraps
it up in.”
Instead of concentrating on the problem, look for the gift.
Wonderfully enough, you will always find it. What’s more,
sometimes the gift, or valuable lesson, can be of far greater
value than the cost of the problem itself. Sometimes, one lesson
that you learn in dealing with a problem can be the key to
your long-term success. As Napoleon Hill wrote, “Within every
problem or obstacle lays the seed of an equal or greater
opportunity or benefit. Your job is to find it.”
Continually think of yourself as a strong, powerful, resolute
person in the face of adversity. In World War I, a British
general was described by his superiors: “There he stands, like
an iron peg, driven into the frozen ground, immovable.”
Let this be an accurate description of you whenever you face
difficulties or problems of any kind. Resolve to stand like an
iron peg driven into the frozen ground.
Resolve in Advance
When you resolve in advance that you will never give up, your
success is virtually guaranteed. In the final analysis, nothing can
really stop you but yourself.
In life, it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked
down. All that matters is how many times you get back up. If
you continue to get back up and press onward, you must
eventually reach your goal.
Each time you exert your self-discipline to persist in the face of
adversity, you also increase your self-esteem and self-confidence.
Then, as your self-esteem increases, you feel stronger, more
powerful, and more unstoppable. When you feel better and
stronger, you become more capable of persisting the next
time—and then the time after that.
By disciplining yourself to persist in the face of all adversity,
you put your life onto an upward spiral of self-esteem,
self-discipline, and persistence until you eventually become like a
force of nature.
Persistence is self-discipline in action.
In Part Two, you will learn the specific things you can do to
apply these principles to the practical areas of life, to achieve
greater success in your work and career, and to fulfill your
potential in the months and years ahead.
 
Action Exercises:
1. Identify one area in your life in which you need to
persist even harder to achieve your goal, and then take
action in that area.
2. Identify a goal in your life that you did not
accomplish because you failed to persist through to
completion. What steps could you take today to succeed in
that area?
3. Identify one big goal that you achieved because you
persisted and refused to give up, no matter how difficult it
became.
4. Decide on your major definite purpose in life, the
one goal that, if you achieved it, would have the greatest
positive impact on your life.
5. Write down your goal clearly, make a detailed plan
of action to accomplish it, and then tell yourself that
“failure is not an option.”
6. Make a decision today that you will persist until you
succeed, no matter what happens, because “I am
unstoppable.”
7. Resolve to set and achieve one important goal,
overcoming the inevitable difficulties, problems and setbacks
you will experience, and to work at it until you succeed.
Repeat this process over and over until persistence
becomes a habit.