Persistence

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing the ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Your dreams don’t die all at once. They fade away.

They start as a vision of what you want in the future. A change you want to make to the world or a life you want to build for yourself. This is the thing that you think about when you have a moment of clarity. When you’re not being bombarded with new information. When you take a vacation. Or you’re up late by yourself one night. You think about what you want to do in the long-term and commit to it to some degree.

But over time that vision fades away.

Dreams don’t die a fast death. They aren’t struck down by competing ideas. They die of malnourishment because you lose sight of them.

We invest a lot of time and energy into finding good information about technique. If your goal is to self-publish a book, you’ve probably invested time into reading some books on writing. Books about the technique or the skill of writing. You probably have read lots about the self-publishing world as well. How to find an editor, how to find a designer, how to properly promote your book.

Time spent improving your writing skill is not time wasted, you do learn things. But when you get to work on any big project, beyond your skill, you need a ton of persistence. It is better to have a full book with bad grammar, than a quarter of a book with perfect prose. Our time and energy spent on perfecting our technique could be spent towards learning more about persistence.

Learning how to set our lives up in a way so that our dreams can’t die of malnourishment. Writing down our goals and sticking them all around the house so that you don’t forget about them. Learning about setting landmarks along the way so that you don’t feel discouraged. Learning about how to be persistent because persistence makes greatness.

Taking on an uncompromising desire to achieve something and having the commitment to keep coming back, over and over and over again. To not give in when something gets in your way. Whether that is a TV show you really like, or a regulation blocking your path.

Persistence is knowing that you don’t know how long it will take you to achieve your goals, and committing anyways. Accepting that even if it takes ten times as long as I think it will take that, I will never stop.