Sometimes it takes a long time to see the results from having a positive outlook. Most of us expect instant feedback for our efforts, but life doesn’t always work that way. If you’ve been trying to apply the principles of this book so far, you might be thinking something like this: I’ve been as generous as I can to people for a couple of weeks, but nothing seems to have changed in my life. Or, I keep showing kindness to others, but they don’t seem to be reciprocating. What you’re experiencing is the normal ebb and flow of life. Sometimes change happens all at once, and sometimes it takes a little while to appear. A positive attitude isn’t a technique for making your life perfect overnight. It’s a lifestyle that takes time to develop and to produce the positive changes you seek.
Over the years I’ve often reflected on Dad’s life and the dreams he had. For a while, I felt only sadness that his vision for a better life for his family was never realized. He dreamed of a positive future for all of us; that’s why he took the major step of leaving his job in the mine and moving to Ohio. Then, just when things seemed to be looking up, he was killed in a construction accident, ironically while building a hospital. His life ended without seeing the results he’d hoped for. His positive outlook, faith, and determination seemed to amount to nothing. What if that happens to me? I couldn’t help but wonder. Is all my positive talk really accomplishing anything?
Then one day my brothers and I were together for a holiday visit. Since it was a Monday, I was wearing Dad’s old Timex, and we got talking about the old days, and the course of our lives since then. All three of us graduated from college and found our way into pastoral ministry where we led growing, healthy congregations. Mark now pastors a thriving church in Oklahoma and has published two books. My brother Terry moved into the field of education and is a university vice president. Mom was able to escape the desperate poverty of our early years and live a happy, productive life, including finding loving companionship with my stepdad, Jack Hollingsworth. I’ve had the privilege of serving in the highest level of leadership for my denomination, speaking to audiences all over the world, and publishing more than 90 books. Health, well-being, joy, laughter, loving families, successful careers—this is the result of Dad’s positive attitude, forward thinking, and willingness to take risks for his family. His optimistic outlook is now impacting the lives of a fourth generation. He just didn’t live to see it.
As I wound Dad’s old watch again today, I thought again about the many sacrifices he made, all with a smile on his face and never a complaint from his lips. And I remembered the old slogan for these rugged timepieces: “It takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’.” That was Dad all right. He didn’t have to see the results of his effort to know what they would be. He was willing to keep going in spite of all the difficulties he faced, always believing that future would be brighter than the past. And now I realize that by doing so, he gave his family one final legacy: the gift of perseverance.
Perseverance Rises Up from a Positive Attitude
Life hands out its share of heartache to everyone, and sooner or later it’ll be your turn. Happy and successful people aren’t deterred by a few hard knocks; they keep going. Positive thinkers find the spiritual and emotional strength to carry on even when they’re tired, or the car broke down again, or they’ve just received bad news, or the weather isn’t perfect, or other people tell them they’ll never make it. Perseverance is a positive attitude with work boots on. It’s the ability to keep going through difficult times based on the belief that the goal can be reached.
The opposite of perseverance is despair. Many people quit just before things get better—in business and relationships. As a result, they miss out on the very things they’ve worked so hard to achieve. Both perseverance and despair spring from your basic attitude toward life. Perseverance comes from a positive outlook, a belief that good things are possible, that you’re capable, that your choices matter, that you can. Despair results from the opposite belief: that the world is getting worse rather than better, that there’ll never be enough resources, that you’re powerless to effect change, that you can’t.
The choice to persevere is critical to reaching your goals because it writes the last chapter of your life. Your decision to persevere will determine your legacy.
You Can Learn to Persevere
Perseverance is easy enough to define, but very difficult to practice. Sooner or later everyone meets resistance in their life, relationships, careers, or goals. Even the best ventures run up against obstacles. There’s never been a marriage without a few rough spots, and everyone who sets out to get a college degree or write a book or recover from a surgery will face setbacks. We know that it’s best to press on and fight through the difficulties, but it’s never easy. It’s tempting to back off, change course, or just plain quit. Maybe that’s why Zig Ziglar referred to failure as “the path of least persistence.” We’ve all been there.
Most people don’t need to be persuaded that perseverance is a good thing. Our need is to be inspired to put that knowledge into practice when it’s needed most. It helps to hear stories of great men and women who’ve done exactly that—kept a positive outlook amid difficult circumstances.
Here are a few lessons you can learn from those who’ve gone before you, a few snapshots of what it looks like to persevere. Notice how each of these characteristics of people who choose to persevere stems from a positive attitude.
They Keep Trying
Many young people dream of becoming sports stars. Emmitt Smith was no different. When he graduated from Escambia High School and headed for the University of Florida, he had dreams of playing in the National Football League. By the time he graduated from college, he had another goal in mind. Smith said, “At the age of 21, I already knew what I needed to do in order to make my mark. I wanted to become the all-time leading rusher.”1 That was an auspicious goal because the record had been established by the great Walter Payton with over 16,000 yards. But Smith was determined, and over the course of 16 seasons in the NFL, he didn’t just break the previous record, he shattered it, racking up an astounding 18,355 yards carrying the football.
That achievement would be amazing enough in its own right, but when you reflect further on this fact, it becomes downright incredible. Emmitt Smith’s average yards per carry during his NFL career was 4.2. That means he carried the football more than ten miles while being knocked to the ground by someone bigger and stronger than himself every 12 feet!
No wonder Jerry Jones, who drafted Smith to play for the Dallas Cowboys in 1990, said this about the eight-time Pro Bowler: “Emmitt Smith is about durability. He’s about dependability. He’s got the heart of a champion. I think it’s fair to say that a runner of his kind will not be seen again. No one will perform at that position, with that type of production, for that length of time again. It’s just too hard to do.”2
Perseverance is about getting back up again when you’ve been knocked to your feet. It means not letting anything or anyone deter you from your goal. People who persevere get up, dust themselves off, and keep trying, no matter what. And though I hate to disagree with a great football mind like Jerry Jones, I do believe someone will come along to break Emmitt Smith’s record. It will be someone with a tremendously positive attitude and a whole lot of determination. It will be someone who believes it can be done.
They Keep the Goal in Sight
People who persevere keep the object of their pursuit clearly in sight. They don’t take their eyes from it. For when you lose sight of the goal, your determination will begin to waver.
That’s what Florence Chadwick discovered on July 4, 1952, when she attempted to become the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, spanning 21 miles from Catalina Island to Palos Verde, California. At the age of 34, she was already America’s greatest long-distance swimmer. In 1950 she’d swum the English Channel in 14 hours and 20 minutes, breaking a record that had stood for almost a quarter century. The next year, she swam the Channel in both directions.
However, as Florence attempted to swim to Catalina Island, the channel was shrouded in fog so thick that the support boats following her could barely see her. On more than one occasion, her team used rifles to drive away the sharks. While America watched on television, she labored on for hours, finally concluding that she couldn’t complete the crossing. Despite the urging of her mother and trainer, Chadwick gave up the attempt after 15 hours and 55 minutes. Sadly, she later discovered that she was less than a mile from the shore.
Reportedly, Chadwick told a news reporter, “Look, I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land I know I could have made it.”3 Two months later, she returned to the Catalina Channel for a second attempt. Though the conditions were just as bleak as before, she was able to keep her mind focused on the goal and made the crossing in just under 13 hours 48 minutes, breaking a 27-year-old record by more than two hours. Florence Chadwick was the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel, a feat she repeated two more times.
People who persevere have the ability to maintain their focus despite their surroundings. They remind themselves of what they’re doing, and why. Keeping the end in sight enables you to push through the obstacles, ignore difficulties, and reach your goal.
They Don’t Allow Failure to Define Them
Despair is the belief that no good outcome is possible. It’s the logical outcome of a negative attitude, for remember that your thoughts shape your identity, your words become your reality, your actions determine your character, your habits predict your future, and your choices change your life—for better or worse. Negative thinkers have a tendency to interpret every negative event in a global sense, meaning that they believe it defines their world, not just their immediate circumstances. So when they experience failure, they consider themselves to be a failure. That negative thought works its way all the way through the chain of thought, work, action, habit, and choice. The only logical outcome is despair. Negative thinkers simply cannot persevere because they allow their failures to define themselves.
Positive thinkers never do. They see failure as local, meaning that it indicates only the current circumstance, not the future and certainly not their identity.
Perhaps there’s no greater example of this than America’s sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln now holds mythic status in American culture because of his perseverance through the long struggle against slavery, including the brutal Civil War. Less well known is the fact that, prior to being elected president, Lincoln had failed far more often than he’d succeeded in nearly every aspect of life. He failed in business at the age of 22. A year later, he ran for the Illinois legislature and was defeated. Undaunted, he entered business again at age 24 and failed again. He was elected to the state legislature at age 25 but had personal problems for the next two years. He was subsequently defeated in a bid for speaker of the legislature, defeated as an elector, and defeated in a run for Congress. He was elected to Congress at age 37 but served only one term. He was defeated in a run for the Senate, and defeated as a candidate for vice president. At age 49, he was again defeated in a run for the Senate. When Lincoln was elected president in 1860 at the age of 51, he had lost eight elections, won only two, and failed twice in business. Clearly, the man did not allow failure to define him!
Failure is not a mirror; it doesn’t reflect who you are. It’s a single event, something that happened and doesn’t need to be repeated. People who persevere do not allow failure to define their identity, determine their thoughts, or shape their future. They view it as they would a textbook or blog post—something to learn from.
Think Creatively about Problems
Negative thinkers see problems as a wall that cannot be scaled. They’re absolute barriers. Positive thinkers see problems as opportunities to exercise creative thinking. My friend Scott experienced that while on a vacation in Europe with his wife, Jill. “We arrived in Brussels at seven o’clock on a Saturday morning,” Scott relates. “Jill had planned a layover to see that historic city, so we had to find our way to the hotel.”
The couple caught a bus at the airport and took it to a transfer stop, where they planned to catch a second bus that would take them within a block of the hotel. It was December, and the temperature was about 40 degrees. A light rain began to fall, and that’s when things got interesting.
“Where’s the transfer bus?” Scott wondered aloud.
“I’m sure it’ll be along any minute,” Jill replied, ever the optimist. Twenty minutes passed without a single vehicle passing on the street. With limited knowledge of the local language, Scott attempted to decipher the bus schedule posted nearby. That’s when it hit him.
“This bus doesn’t run on Saturday,” he said glumly. As the capital of the European Union, Brussels is a thriving city during the week. On weekends, activity is much slower. “I can’t believe this!” Scott said, now venting frustration. “It’s seven thirty in the morning, there’s no traffic on the streets, no buses running, we’re dragging our luggage through a strange city, we don’t speak the language, and we have no idea where our hotel is. And it’s raining!”
Far from being discouraged, Jill was enthusiastic. “This will be fun!” she said with obvious excitement. “We can think of it like an adventure.”
“That’s when it hit me,” Scott said. “I’d been looking only at the negatives. In fact, that was a pattern in my life. It took Jill’s relentless optimism to help me break free from that.” In fact it was an adventure. The two eventually found a cab, made it to their hotel, and had a great vacation.
Negative thinkers see only problems. Positive thinkers look for solutions. Negative thinkers become angry about obstacles. Positive thinkers see them as opportunities. Negative thinkers are so worn down by fatigue, frustration, and anger that they cannot persevere. Positive thinkers are so excited about possibilities that they cannot give up.
They Believe They Can Succeed
To achieve any goal, you must first believe it’s possible to do so. To persevere through any crisis, you must first believe that the goal can still be reached. That’s why positive thinking is essential to perseverance, and perseverance is the natural result of positive thinking. When you think you can, you will. When you think you can’t, you won’t. Either way, you’ll be right. That’s how much power your thoughts have in your life. In order to persevere, you must have a positive faith in the future and in yourself. You must think you can.
They Listen to Friends, Not Critics
The fight against slavery in Great Britain was led by a young politician named William Wilberforce. The campaign began in the 1780s and would take some 50 years to reach its goal. Politics in those days were no less rough-and-tumble than today, and by 1790 Wilberforce was questioning whether the effort would ever succeed. Many were bitterly opposed to Wilberforce’s work, and he was vilified in the press and in Parliament. Then he received a letter, dated February 24, 1791, from an icon of British social action, John Wesley, founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley, now 87 and in the twilight of a great career, wrote to the young Wilberforce:
Dear Sir:
Unless the divine power has raised you up to be as “Athanasius against the world,” I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy, which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils. But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them stronger than God? O be not weary of well-doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.
It was the last letter John Wesley ever wrote, and it had its intended effect. Wilberforce decided to persevere. Though it would take another 32 years, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed by Parliament in 1833, abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire. Wilberforce, by then an old man himself, died just three days after hearing the news. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Positive thinkers don’t take their cues from critics. They’re tuned in to other voices that encourage and inspire them: friends, colleagues, family members, great leaders of the past and present. When you allow naysayers, critics, negative thinkers, or complainers to have your attention, you won’t persevere. When you listen to those who love you, support you, and hold you accountable, you’ll succeed.
Choose Perseverance
As you begin to apply the principles of positive thinking to your life, you’re bound to face setbacks, difficulties, and problems. You’ll need perseverance. Remember that positive thinkers don’t dwell on the past or even present circumstances. Their vision is set on the future, which they know will be brighter than today. That positive mental framework enables you to persevere.
Take this lesson from the lowly bamboo plant. Although it’s technically considered a species of grass, bamboo is one of the strongest natural materials and is prized as a building material in certain parts of the world. It has a higher compressive strength than either wood, brick, or concrete, and its tensile strength is nearly as great as steel. But if you want to plant your own bamboo forest, you’ll need a healthy dose of perseverance. You see, this amazing plant grows deep before it grows tall. This means that for many months or even years after planting, there’s no visible growth at all. While the plant is gaining strength below the surface, the bamboo farmer must wait patiently, trusting that the hardy plant will eventually emerge from the ground. There’s nothing to do but wait. It’s a lesson in perseverance.
In time, however, that perseverance is rewarded. When the bamboo shoots do emerge during the rainy springtime, they grow at an incredible rate. Some species can grow up to three feet in a single day. That’s nearly an inch and a half every hour!
Imagine the loss for a bamboo farmer who failed to persevere. What would it be like to patiently water and tend the ground for month after month, then fail to miss the incredible harvest?
Make the choice to keep going when things seem difficult or even impossible. Never allow present circumstances to pull your vision away from the future. Make the choice to persevere.