Staying Power

Do you wilt and give up easily? Do yo

hang up your boots long before the game’s done? Are you willing to sacrifice the time it takes to attain greatness, to achieve a goal, to reach your destination?

It is probably the most humbling of things, the realisation that it takes time and true grit to achieve anything significant, anything that would stand the test of time. This brings to the fore, the strenuous test the strength of your desire must undergo. How deeply rooted is your yearning for success? Can it withstand adversaries, human or abstract? Can it withstand the greatest opposition to all things worth doing? The opposition from onescwelf.

Self doubt can literally kill. You’re headed nowhere fast with it. It is crippling. It stagnates. It suggests you should quench a venture before even you’ve had the chance to breathe life into it. But I’m nowhere near as good. I’m nowhere near as eloquent. I couldn’t possibly speak in front of that many people. I don’t look like … (fill in the blank)

These of course are all lies. I attribute them to inertia. Lethargy. Stasis. A case of not willing to try. To give that first push required to transform a mere idea to something tangible, something of value, something with the power to change lives.
Staying power is perhaps the most effective of all kinds of power. And yet it is most elusive in our age of crash and burn.

Imagine yet, if you will, all the things you hold dear in the world – in arts, in science, the greats: Einstein, Chopin, Picasso, Jay-Z (and no this isn’t tokenism to hip-hop.) Imagine if they never got started. Imagine if they stuck to their doubts. Imagine if their doubts (which they most certainly had) had crippled them. Now just that, the world would have been a little more stale and dull. Just where we might all remain if choose to heed the voice of doubt.

Now staying power is a most important concept. It lets us persevere when the results we want are not yet in. Think of it as the journey, lots of turns, and at times we are surrounded by green fields, with nothing exciting in sight, and yet the destination lies still ahead. The prize remains intact for those amongst us willing to stay the course.

Staying power is driving through all the roads till you get there – to your prize of choice – no matter what obstacles lie ahead, no matter how long it takes. Think this way for a moment, what else would you rather do? Quit?