ConsistentPersistence
“I will persist until I succeed. Always I will take another step. If that is of no avail, I will take another and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. I know that small steps repeated will complete any undertaking.”
—Og Mandino
If you take a close look at people who are truly successful in life, you will find one character trait in abundance.
We call it Consistent Persistence. At first glance, the words consistent and persistence may seem similar. That’s true, they are. We have double-barreled them to emphasize the importance of this habit. In case you feel like skipping over this without due thought and consideration, here’s an important statement to digest and store forever in the deepest recesses of your being: You will never achieve big results in your life without consistent and persistent action.
In this chapter, you will discover how to make consistently good choices so that your dreams and goals turn into exciting reality. You will also learn what a higher level of consistency means, and how you can implement this daily. In addition, we’ll show you how to build your mental toughness so you can endure hard times and unexpected challenges when they arise.
Many organizations struggle because their leaders put up with a high level of inconsistency. Well, we have news for you. The business world today is a lot different than it was ten years ago. The performance bar has been raised to a new level. Ineptitude will not be tolerated. For example: You call a team meeting for 9 am Monday. Each one of your twenty sales representatives is asked to attend. At 9:15 am only fourteen people have shown up. Two more eventually stroll in at 9:25 am and the rest never appear. And it’s like that almost every week.
This lack of consistency will wreck your team unity. Usually a few prima donnas are the root cause. Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don’t. It’s really frustrating. In today’s world the answer is simple—lock them out! That’s right, at 9:00 am sharp, lock the doors of the meeting room. The message will soon be understood: “If you want to play on our team, you must be consistent.”
The Benefits of CONSISTENCY
First, to give you a taste of what we’re referring to, let’s look at a wonderful role model. He’s known as Mr. Consistency: Cal Ripken Jr.
In case you are not a baseball fan, Cal Ripken Jr. played for the Baltimore Orioles. The reason he is a legend in the sport is his incredible consistency. On September 6, 1995, Cal played his 2,131st consecutive major league baseball game. In doing so, he broke the record of 2,130 games set by Lou Gehrig, a record that had remained unbeaten for more than fifty-six years.
Let’s put this into perspective: To equal Cal Ripken Jr.’s consistency, an employee working an average eight hours a day, five days a week, would need to work eight years, one month and twenty days and never call in sick! No wonder he was called the Iron Man of Baseball. He played in every single game for more than thirteen years. (On the night he broke the record, the closest person to him in consecutive starts was Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox, who had played a mere 235 games.)
Ripken’s ability to show up for every game translated into a remarkable list of successes. During the streak he was the winner of two Most Valuable Player awards, in 1983 and in 1991. He also played in twelve consecutive All-Star games, and hit more home runs than any other major-league shortstop. Financially he is set for life, but more than the money, he had a tremendous feeling of accomplishment.
His philosophy about work is refreshingly simple. All he ever wanted was to play baseball, preferably for Baltimore, and to do his best in every game.
This demonstrates a keen sense of responsibility and a work ethic that is all too rare today. By simply showing up consistently and playing his best, the rewards eventually materialized. And through it all, Ripken maintained a humble unassuming attitude.
It’s interesting that Cal Ripken Jr. has also developed the same consistency in his family life. His wife and children are important to him, and it shows. Compare this to the weekly ritual of scandals and contract demands now rampant in the world of professional sports, perpetuated by individuals of lesser maturity and weakness of character.
One last footnote to the story and a point worth remembering. When you stand for something and do a remarkable job of it, you attract the top people and create huge rewards for yourself. On his record-breaking night, Cal Ripken Jr. was feted by world-famous celebrities, multinational corporations and even the president of the United States. He was showered with gifts and received numerous standing ovations. Imagine! All for showing up every day and doing what he loves to do.
Mark:
I am a huge admirer of Professor Muhammed Yunus. This wonderful Nobel Laureate, humanitarian, and founder of Grameen Bank—bankers to the poor—has four key disciplines he emphasizes if you want to succeed in business and in life. These are daily discipline, hard work, solid ethics and consistency. The simple implementation of these has spawned hundreds of similar micro lending business models to his own, who are helping the poorest nations around the world. When you find something that works, keep doing it. By all means strive to improve your process, but make sure your consistency doesn’t falter.
Now put yourself under the microscope for a moment. Does your discipline, work rate, ethics, and consistency show up in real terms every day? Or are you bouncing around all over the place, dabbling here and there with the opportunities of life? If you are doing pretty well, we applaud you. But let’s move your abilities to another level, that rarefied atmosphere where the challenges are greater and the rewards are even more lucrative.
Embrace Your Greatest
POWER
In previous chapters we positioned all of the Action Step exercises at the end so you could focus better and take as much time as you want. That’s about to change. In fact we want you to stop right now, get mentally prepared and do the following two-part exercise before continuing. If you decide to keep on reading, you will completely miss the impact of this powerful lesson.
Using the following worksheet, make a list of six things you absolutely have to get done in the next two months. These are activities that must be completed, for whatever reason.
They may include some of the short-term goals you established earlier. Keep your statements brief. Opposite each activity that you have to complete, write one word that describes your feelings about it.
Think of how you honestly feel when you visualize each task. To help you, here are a few examples of “feeling” words: angry, sad, happy, excited, upset, worried, frustrated, joyful, loving, thankful. These are all words that directly relate to emotions. Choose your own word to describe how you feel about each item on your Have-To list. It is really important that you complete this exercise immediately to gain the most benefit. In our Power of Focus Coaching Program this has been one of the biggest breakthrough activities for our clients.
Have-To’s
Things I have to do in the next two months,
i.e., no later than: ___________________________________________________ date: _______
Feelings
What word best describes your feelings about having to do these particular activities?
Have-to’s Feelings
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Well done! Now let’s review your list. Take a look at each item and, one at a time, put a line through each task. That’s right, cross it off your list.
Here’s why: You don’t have to do any of these things. No, you really don’t! Now, you may be protesting that some of these things really must be done. They can’t be avoided—taxes must be paid, you say. No, you don’t have to pay taxes. You may end up in jail or pay a fine, but you don’t have to pay taxes. These are just the consequences if you don’t pay—but you don’t have to. In case you are a little confused by this, let’s make a simple defining statement:
In life, there’s nothing you
really HAVE to do
That includes working seventy hours a week, or staying in a job, business or relationship you don’t enjoy.
Now look at your list again—will your world really come to an end if you do not complete these tasks in the next two months? Of course not. You may not be happy if you don’t complete them, and there may be real consequences if you don’t. We understand that. The big point we are making is that you don’t have to.
Let’s switch gears for a minute. (If you are still confused, bear with us. Everything will become crystal-clear shortly.) Notice the words you selected to describe your feelings. Based on years of experience, we’d guess a lot of those words are negative, especially if the task is something you have been putting off for a while or are not looking forward to. It’s normal to feel anxious, concerned, or frustrated in these situations. Take another look at the words you used. What sort of energy do these “feeling” words bring out in you—negative or positive? You’re right! If the feeling is negative, you automatically create a negative energy that drains your capacity to perform at a high level.
Okay, let’s move on to the second part of the exercise, using the worksheet that follows. Make a list of at least six things you want to do, or choose to do in the next two months. Make this a different list. What are you really looking forward to doing? Again, choose a word to describe how you feel about completing each item on your list. Review the following examples first.
To get the full benefit of this it’s important that you sit down and complete this activity now.
Choose-To’s
Things I choose to do in the next two months. (e.g., plan a special anniversary, launch a new product, start guitar lessons)
i.e., no later than: ___________________________________________________ date: _______
Feelings
What word best describes your feelings about wanting to complete these activities?
Choose-to’s Feelings
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Now look at those feeling words. They are probably much more positive than the ones on your Have-To list. If your activities are producing positive energy, then you will have a greater capacity and desire to complete them. Isn’t it better to be feeling happy and excited instead of worried and frustrated?
At this point you may be thinking, “Well, it’s easy to feel good about the things I want to do, but life isn’t always like that. There are a lot of things I don’t like to do, but I have to do them anyway. That’s just the way it is.”
No, it isn’t. Here’s the mega-point:
Everything in life is a choice
Breathing may be the one exception!
Jack:
Recently, I chose to set a goal of doing one hundred push-ups in a row. I bought a program called 100 Push-Ups, an iPhone app, and the book by the same title. And I started. I went from twenty push-ups to fifty pretty quickly. Then I got up to sixty-five, then seventy-five, where I plateaued. I couldn’t get past that. I started having wrist problems and shoulder problems and I was backing away from it. Part of me was saying, “This is a stupid goal. What am I doing? I’m nearly sixty-seven years old.” I just thought, “I don’t have to do this!” Then I realized, “No, I set this as a goal.” I want to be able to do this, so I had to get myself back into it and push through the pain. Then I found a guy who’s actually going for a world push-up record and he taught me some exercises. Then I sought out some other people, went online, and read some more. So I’m back on it. There were a couple of weeks when I thought, “You know, I’m going to bail.” Then I said, “No, I’m going to do this!” Quitting too soon is one of the main reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. Sometimes you’ve just got to hang in there and tough it out.
Over the years I’ve had lots of people ask me, “How can I keep going when I don’t feel like it?” My answer to that is, you’ve got to really figure out what is your why. The why for me is not just so I can show off my push-ups. It’s to build core strength, to have something to give me focus, to keep exercising and not atrophy. To be healthy, to look sexy in my clothes to my wife and be attractive, and not look at myself on stage and say, “This guy teaches success and he’s thirty pounds overweight? Wow, what’s that about?”
A clear picture of your big reason to succeed, plus a healthy dose of daily discipline in the form of specific action steps, is a powerful formula that will help you through self-doubt and negativity.
The man who sold the world on choosing a new direction.
Imagine if you had spent years building a cutting-edge business, using pioneering research to create a breakthrough product line, and were then dumped unceremoniously by the CEO you had personally hired two years earlier.
How would you feel?
What emotions would be coursing through your body?
What would you do?
Even worse, you then spent the next twelve years on the “outside,” attempting to keep two new ventures afloat, struggling with low sales, uncertain cash flow and constantly hearing predictions of doom and gloom about your future, from experts in your industry.
Most people would not survive this fast moving downward spiral. They’d simply throw in the towel and surrender to the wisdom of the day.
Not Steve Jobs. The man whose motto became, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” established a new benchmark for consistent persistence. Have you noticed, when faced with seemingly impossible odds, men and women of vision will stay focused on their ultimate goal? They will find a way to circumvent, climb over, burrow under, or simply blast through any obstacle that blocks their path.
Jobs stuck to his Big Picture vision of creating “tools” that would change the world. That often meant any naysayers on staff, including his team of engineering hot shots, would face his wrath in no uncertain terms. In short, he could be extremely difficult to work for and never liked hearing the words, “It can’t be done!”
This anti-establishment characteristic showed up early in Steve Jobs’ life. His attempt to go through college ended after one semester. He enjoyed hippie status in the seventies and suffered almost as many failures as successes in his turbulent career. Did you get that? He suffered almost as many failures as successes along the way. Please drill that into your brain! Consistent persistence requires that you stumble more than once. It strengthens your resolve to win.
“Oh no, not me, I never lost control.
You’re face to face with the
man who sold the world.”
—David Bowie
Apple Inc. was recently proclaimed the most successful company in the world, knocking aside perennial giants such as Exxon Mobil and Microsoft.
The “tools” that Jobs and his team of skilled artisans created have engaged millions of people around the world like never before. The iPod, iTunes, iPad, and state-of-the-art Apple computers are iconic symbols of his legacy.
In his last decade on earth, Steve Jobs battled one of the world’s toughest diseases, pancreatic cancer. Right up to his unfortunate passing at age fifty-six, he was still planning newer and better devices to make our lives even more enjoyable. One of his most meaningful statements that will challenge us all to keep pushing forward is this:
“Remembering you are going to
die is the best way to avoid thinking
you have something to lose.”
—Steve Jobs
By now we hope you are convinced that life is all about choices. Look at the evidence surrounding you every day. Have you noticed that some people choose to lead lives of mediocrity? Sadly, some people even make the ultimate choice—they choose to take their own lives.
In contrast, others arise from the most difficult setbacks and choose to create better circumstances for themselves. And they often do it magnificently. Libraries are full of biographies and autobiographies about men and women who developed the habit of Consistent Persistence to turn their lives around. The trigger point came when they realized they could choose a different future. Steve Jobs is a great example.
Please understand this. It’s vital. All of the results you are currently experiencing in your life are absolutely perfect for you. This includes your career, personal relationships and financial status. How could it be otherwise? The reason you are where you are in life is simply a result of all the choices you have made to this point. In other words, the consistency of your positive choices, or the lack of them, has given you the lifestyle you now own. When you accept total responsibility for this fact, you are well on your way to enjoying peace of mind. Many people endure a life filled with frustration because they are stuck in Have-To’s.
When you say things like, “She made me angry,” the truth is that you chose to be angry. You didn’t have to be angry. You responded with anger instead of making a different choice.
Other popular commentaries you’ll hear are, “I’m stuck in this relationship.” In other words, I have to stay stuck. Or, “I hate this job, I’ll never make enough money to enjoy real freedom,” which really means, “I have to stay in this low-paying job forever.” How sad!
Have-To’s put you in a position of pressure, whereas Choose-To’s
put you in a position of power.
Choose wisely!
When you constantly live your life in Have-To land, you put yourself in a position of pressure. This causes resistance and resentment, and drains your life of energy.
When you live each day from a position of Choose-To, you are in a position of power. You feel in charge and more in control of your life.
This takes a conscious effort to consistently think about your everyday decisions—even simple tasks like washing the dishes. Say to yourself, “I’m choosing to wash the dishes now, and I’ll do the best job possible.” This is much better than, “Oh no, I have to do the dishes, what a drag.” If you really detest doing mundane tasks, choose now to create a lifestyle where you won’t be required to do those things. Delegate them to someone else, or hire the work out.
It’s also worth noting that the resistance caused by your Have-To jobs often leads to chronic procrastination, and you know how unproductive that can be. Decide now to shift your focus. Make every activity a conscious choice. No more Have-To lists. Starting today, eliminate those words from your vocabulary. Regain your power. Expand your energy and enjoy the freedom that consistent choosing adds to your life.
Here’s a good example: One of our clients, a man in his early fifties, was frustrated about his inability to stop smoking. In one of our Power of Focus workshops he stood up, and in a voice filled with emotion said, “I have to quit smoking or I’m going to die, and I don’t want to die yet!” He felt totally frustrated and was obviously anxious about his future.
We asked him to reframe his situation to one of choice, instead of Have-To. He came up with this very powerful statement: “Today, I choose to win the battle over smoking.”
Being competitive, he decided to treat his smoking like an adversary. It was a battle, and he was going to win it. He used this affirmation every day, and within two months he quit smoking for good. By putting himself in charge through choosing to, and acting on his new choice, it was no contest. That victory spurred him on to make other lifestyle changes, including a regular exercise program and better eating habits. As you can see, consciously making better choices creates an exciting chain of events.
When you consistently make better choices you create better habits. These better habits produce better character. When you have better character you add more value to the world. When you become more valuable you attract bigger and better opportunities. This allows you to make more of a contribution in your life. This in turn leads to bigger and better achievements. People who have figured this out stand out in society as people of strength, vision and commitment.
Another of our clients, a sprightly seventy-three-year-old lady, was given the Have-To list in one of our workshops. When confronted with this, she folded her arms and in a loud voice declared, “I don’t have to do anything!” She simply refused to participate. We later found out that she had a long history of building successful enterprises and had obviously learned this important lesson many years ago.
Remember, your dominant thoughts usually win out when it comes to everyday decisions. Make sure your conscious choices are moving you closer to the completion of your most important goals. It’s also important to understand that choosing not to do something is a valid position. If someone asks you to join a committee that will require you to give up two evenings every week, you can always decline if it’s not in your best interest. Choosing to say “No” is often the best strategy to keep your life well-balanced, and in control.
Now, here are a few more choices for you to consider:
1. I choose not to watch TV or play video games for three hours every night.
Instead, I choose to invest one hour learning more about my business, financial independence, public speaking or any number of other interesting activities that will broaden my knowledge and awareness.
2. I choose not to waste my time reading sensationalist newspapers and trashy magazines every day.
Instead, I choose to start my day reading something inspirational, like a Chicken Soup for the Soul book, an inspiring autobiography or a spiritually uplifting message. By the way, we’re not suggesting you stop reading relevant newspapers or websites. In business it’s important to keep up with current events. Just avoid the tabloid nonsense.
3. I choose not to become a workaholic.
Instead, I choose to schedule personal time off every week with my family and friends, as well as special time for myself, to be enjoyed guilt free.
Are you starting to get the picture? Do you see how powerful you can become by owning your choices every day? From now on, when the words, “I have to” jump into your head, yell, “Cancel, cancel—I choose not to suffer any more Have-To’s in my life.” It’s exhilarating. In the early stages you will need to be on guard at the doorstep of your mind to prevent those nasty little Have-To’s from sneaking inside. Be absolutely ruthless in this respect. Stamp them out persistently until your new Choose-To habit is firmly entrenched.
“If I’m ever on a life-support system I choose to be unplugged, but not until I’m down to a size eight!”
—Henriette Montel
The Double-A FORMULA
Now that we’ve sorted out the importance of choices, get ready for one of the single-most-important strategies you will find in this entire book. You’ll need total consciousness to fully grasp this one. If you need to stretch, or take a quick energy break, do it now so you’ll be alert. Here’s our guarantee: If you adopt 100 percent of what you learn in the rest of this chapter, your business and personal life will leap to a whole new level of performance. In our experience very few people utilize this strategy consistently. As a result, their lives are like a roller coaster, often having more downs than ups.
The Double-A formula is all about you. It stands for: Agreements and Accountability.
Here’s a personal story to introduce this all-important formula, and to illustrate our point:
Les:
Very early in my career I was selling seminar packages to sales teams and business owners. My cash flow was tight and every sale was important.
One morning I did a presentation to a group of six people plus the company owner. They sold vending machines. My presentation went over well and the owner was excited about the benefits his team would enjoy from the business experts I had on my training program.
I also explained to the owner after he had agreed to have his entire team participate, that he would receive a 20 percent group discount for having five or more people signed up. We shook hands and I told him he’d receive our invoice and details of the program within forty-eight hours. Again, he agreed to everything and said his team was enthused about the program. Three days later the owner telephoned to say he had received everything as promised. However, he had one request. He said, “I want a better deal than the twenty percent. I want a third off the full price.”
Decision time for me! At that stage of my fledgling business, every sale counted. The thought of losing several thousand dollars after the time and energy I had invested was a major concern. On the other hand, I had signed up several businesses that were paying for ten to twenty five people to attend my program. None of those companies had asked for more than the 20 percent discount.
I wrestled with this situation overnight, before I called the owner of the small vending machine company to explain I’d be out of integrity if he received a much larger discount than the companies who were sending more people than he was. Do you know what his response was?
“Who will ever know?”
I pondered this for a moment and replied, “Well, you’ll know and I will know. Sorry, no deal.”
Sometimes it’s tough to walk away from new business. However, I’ve had the benefit of excellent advice from experienced mentors, who all said, “Never put your reputation in jeopardy by creating an unfair playing field for your customers. Word of mouth travels fast. One bad experience can damage your business more than you will ever know.”
Have you ever gone into an agreement thinking you knew what the deal was, and then the tables were turned unexpectedly? How did you feel when that happened? Probably upset, frustrated, angry and disappointed, maybe even blaming yourself for not being smarter. Here’s the first big point we want to impress upon you: all broken relationships can be traced back to broken agreements.
This includes business deals, marriages, family situations, your banker, friends, partnerships and any other flawed relationship between two or more people.
Have you noticed how Western society in particular is having more difficulty keeping agreements these days? If you need proof of this, just look at the thousands of lawyers required to sort out all the messes. Fear of being sued today is stunting growth in many industries, particularly the medical profession. That’s crazy. And of course the global financial meltdown in 2008–2009 can be traced directly to a whole series of broken ethical and moral agreements. Here’s the good news. You have an incredible opportunity to stand out, simply by maintaining your integrity. You may be thinking, “But how do I maintain my integrity consistently?” Here’s the all-important answer:
Consistently keeping your agreements is the foundation for true integrity.
Really digest that sentence. If you seriously want to live on higher ground and reap bigger rewards, your consistency will be tested frequently. Consider this: Every day you make agreements. And every day you are judged by others on the way you act after those decisions have been made. What does your scorecard for keeping agreements look like on an average day? Here’s a clue: There is no such thing as a small agreement.
One of our clients made that remark, and it’s a profound statement. For example, a salesperson calls and invites you to lunch tomorrow at 12:15 pm. You arrive on time and he shows up twenty-five minutes late, with no excuse and no apology. Assuming that you waited for him, how do you feel? Is this acceptable? If there is a reasonable excuse, like heavy traffic or a mini-crisis at the office, you might let it pass. But what if it happens a second or a third time? Now we have a series of broken agreements. You are always on time, but the other person is chronically late. In today’s competitive marketplace this will not be tolerated.
When you break an agreement once, you will probably be given a second opportunity. When you repeatedly break agreements, your stock and value in the marketplace rapidly diminishes—people go elsewhere. When you develop the habit of consistently keeping your little agreements, the big ones will look after themselves. Make this a philosophy for how you choose to live your life. When you do, you will be blessed beyond measure. It’s been that way for centuries.
Here’s another example. This one’s for the married men, although if you are a woman you’ll probably relate to the situation. Your wife asks you to replace the burned-out lightbulb in the hall at home. You reply, “Okay, I’ll do it before lunch.” By supper it’s still not fixed. Your wife asks again, politely but firmly. Two days later there’s still no light in the hallway. Frustrated, she eventually does the job herself. You may delight in getting out of that little diversion and not think any more about it, but here’s the point: If you consistently avoid doing what you say you will do, your reputation becomes tarnished. The relationship gradually deteriorates, because bigger commitments are not being kept too, and in many cases the marriage eventually collapses. If this happens you may end up with the letters DD—Duly Divorced—after your name. That’s a pretty serious consequence, and one you may regret for a very long time.
In contrast, when you consistently do what you say you will do, the names attached to you are reliable and trustworthy. When you practice this every day, your rewards are numerous. They include loyal clients, increased profits, loving relationships and maybe most important, a sense of well-being in the knowledge that you are a person of high integrity. That’s a badge you can be proud to wear. It will serve you very well indeed.
In remote parts of Ireland, farmers have a traditional way of sealing an agreement. After the sale of a few cattle they spit on their hands, rub them together and seal the deal with a firm handshake. Their word is their bond—and there isn’t a lawyer anywhere in sight. It’s that strength of character that breeds trust and respect.
There is one situation where it is okay to break your agreement. It’s called Intelligent Disobedience. Let’s say you have a value system that strongly believes it is wrong to physically injure anyone. One day you arrive home and hear a scream. You quietly open the door to your living room and see a man with a gun, threatening your family. It’s a potentially explosive situation. You intervene by smacking the intruder with a golf club behind the knees, disarming him and defusing the situation. Now you know why it’s called Intelligent Disobedience!
One other point. Remember, in normal circumstances if you have difficulty keeping an agreement, it is possible to renegotiate. Always use this option to maintain your integrity. It only takes a moment to call and say, “I’m running fifteen minutes late, is that okay with you?” When you develop the habit of being accountable for your actions, you will stand out as a unique individual. Eventually, when the book is written about your life, you will be remembered for what you did, not what you said. So be accountable for your performance. Make your actions measurable. As film director Woody Allen says, “A big part of life is just showing up!”
The Integrity FACTOR
This is a three-part formula to help you live with the utmost integrity. It’s simple and effective. We challenge you to start using it every day.
1. When you always tell the truth, people trust you.
2. When you do what you say, as promised, people respect you.
3. When you make others feel special, people tend to like you.
The words “as promised” in part two are significant. Use these in your regular correspondence. It will reinforce the fact that you really do follow through. If a client requests you to email specific information within the next twenty-four hours, always start the correspondence with, “As promised.” For example, “As promised, here is the quote you requested yesterday.” When you do this, it is a subtle reminder that you really do keep your commitments, as you promised you would.
Do you remember the Three Big Questions we referred to in Chapter 5, Building Excellent Relationships? Do you like them? Do you trust them? Do you respect them? The Integrity Factor couples these with the principles of being accountable and keeping your agreements. It’s a powerful formula. Learn to live it. Decide now to set a new standard in the way you operate every day. It will put you in the top 3 percent of achievers. You’ll attract more opportunities than you ever thought possible. When you practice the Integrity Factor, your clients will be more than happy to refer you. And that goes straight to improving the bottom line.
Insights
In the long run, consistent persistence is a choice. You don’t “have to” keep hanging in there, fighting battles in business or at home. You don’t “have to” stay the course to be healthy or wealthy. You don’t “have to” clench your teeth and pick yourself up when you’ve suffered a setback. Your alternative choice is to just throw in the towel and quit. And sometimes that’s a valid choice if consistent persistence becomes life threatening or the sacrifice is too great. For example, is saving your business more important than saving your marriage and having your family broken apart? Only you can make a decision like that.
We love to quote our friend and mentor, Jim Rohn. He really was a master when it came to clarity and making better choices. When someone was tempted to quit on their goals, Jim would ask four simple questions. Consider your own answers as you read through them.
1. Why?
Why bother? Why work that hard? Why do so much? Why push yourself? Why keep going? Why? Good question!
2. Why not?
Why not become all you can be? Why not test your capacity? Why not be successful? Why not enjoy the full abundance of what life has to offer. Why not?
3. Why not you?
Why not you, enjoying a wonderful lifestyle? Thousands of others are doing it. Why not you, seeing the world and visiting exotic locations? Why not you, enjoying the freedom of financial independence? Why not you, living in a beautiful home? Why not you, making a difference and being the catalyst for helping people in need? Why not you, living a life of integrity while others flounder? Why not you, fulfilling your dreams? Why not You?
And finally . . .
4. Why not now?
Why wait? Why hold back? Start the process right away and keep going. Yesterday can never be recovered, today is quickly disappearing but tomorrow is ready and waiting for you to focus and follow through. There is no better time. Soon, the years will fly by and your memories will either exhilarate you or exasperate you. It’s your choice!
The next chapter, Taking Decisive Action, will help that adrenaline to start pumping and guide you into successful focused action.
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: My strength
lies solely in my tenacity.”
—Louis Pasteur
Action Steps
Answer these questions honestly. They will help you plot a new course of action. They will also clearly demonstrate your current level of integrity and accountability.
1. In what areas of my life do I not consistently keep agreements?
2. What will this cost me if I don’t change? Consider the long-term consequences.
3. What specifically do I need to change to enjoy The Integrity Factor lifestyle?
4. What specific rewards and benefits will I receive by making these adjustments?
Understanding the importance of integrity in your life is one thing; living it is an entirely different challenge. The next chapter will show you how.
