Financial Journey
(featured column)

Persistence Pays Dividends

by Karen Kuebler

When looking at a single attribute that distinguishes people who get what they want most of the time from those that don’t, I believe the differentiating characteristic is that of persistence.  More...

Those who are tenacious, and have the ability to stay with it as long as it takes, most often succeed at whatever endeavor they are pursuing.  Defeat is not an option.  The word ‘failure’ isn’t in their vocabulary.  Instead it is a learning opportunity and just another piece of feedback in the experiment of life.

Think about those times you have succeeded through sheer will and persistence.  Doesn’t it motivate you and inspire you when you recall these instances?  I believe we have all had examples where we have persisted – the key is to make it an ongoing habit and it will become an integral part of your character.

A savings and investment plan of a million dollars has to begin with a single dollar at one point in time.  A college degree can not be obtained until the first class is completed.  Raising a family doesn’t occur overnight – it consists of many thoughtful decisions and an elaborate planning process.

Add baby steps and persistence together, and this formula will lead to success over time.  I like to view “persistence” as a muscle that we exercise, and with more and more practice, the muscle strengthens.  Recognizing this is a powerful tool, I periodically like to review what I have done to exercise this muscle recently. 

I reviewed some of the things that I have done over the last couple of months that required tenacity and "stick-to-itiveness."  This process of personal evaluation helps to inspire and motivate me to find more and more ways to develop this quality and habit in my life.

A few things I accomplished recently through persistence include the following:

• It required 5 phone calls to different people, and a total investment of about an hour, but I was able to increase our daytime minutes with our cellular phone plan by 200 minutes per month at no extra cost.

• I listed approximately 80 items to sell on Ebay in the last month.  Not everything sold – but I remind myself not to get discouraged when this occurs.  If I owned a store, not every item in the store would sell either.  I can relist the items in a few weeks.  It’s the process of sticking to it, and continuing to find items I can sell – then taking the time and effort to write them up and list them.  I remember to endorse my efforts and not focus on what didn’t sell.

• By sticking with a healthy eating and exercise plan, I finally dropped 10 pounds.  It has taken longer than I would have liked, but persistence did pay off.  I find it helpful to set up smaller milestones to reward along the way when it feels like it is taking too long to achieve an outcome.

• I’ve been tucking some extra money into savings here and there since the beginning of the year.  We have a few trips to take next year that are requiring some planning.  So far I’ve successfully “hidden” $2,200 additional savings toward 2006 vacations!  I play a little game of hiding it in the account so I don’t visually count it in the total, but know it is there for our future needs. 

• I received Professional Passes to the International Comic Convention in San Diego, but it took some effort on my part.  I had been approved last year, and for some reason my name was dropped from the database this year.  I called and wrote a few letters – but it appeared that I wasn’t going to be successful at obtaining the professional passes this year.  I tried one last attempt.  I had found the letter I received last year that granted my Professional status, and forwarded that to the individual I had spoken with several times.  I received a reply that the letter supplied the missing link needed (the database had crashed) and that my sheer, impressive persistence caused them to award 2 Professional passes to me until the year 2007!

This process of personal evaluation helps to inspire and motivate me to find more and more ways to develop the qualities and habits I want to practice in my life.  Take the time to review some personal successes you have accomplished through exercising your “persistence” muscle. 

Set a goal to work on developing this habit a little more each day.  Believe in what you want to achieve.  Do not allow yourself to become discouraged. If you start to feel discouragement setting in, follow the advice of Sir Winston Churchill -- “Never, never, never give up.”  By moving forward with this belief system, and complete confidence in yourself, you can’t help but succeed! 

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Copyright © 2005 by Karen Kuebler.  All rights reserved.

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