With persistence comes success!

I'm pretty sure Napoleon Hill said that, and I'm reminded of his famous book Think and Grow Rich often as I absorb the ideas and concepts taught today in the world of personal development.

We've all got stuff we want to achieve in our lives, big things and smaller things. Love, friendship, happy well adjusted kids, a well run, organized home, being healthy, being a size we feel comfortable with, financial security, learning a skill that brings us pleasure, helping others and making a valuable contribution, a project around the home, travel, all sorts of things. In order to achieve any of these wonderful, worthwhile, desirable things, we must persist in pursuing them.

So what does persistence mean? I think of it as the famous old "just keep showing up" trick. (Not quite the same as the old "banana in the tailpipe" trick.) There are all sorts of variations on this. I've heard stories of people getting a job they didn't think they had much chance at getting simply because they showed up and nobody else did, or showing up and ending up with a different job. There's also the phenomenon that if you repeatedly "show up", no matter how stubborn or stupid you are, you are likely to accidentally learn something and achieve at least small improvements in your methods and knowledge, or that somebody will eventually notice you, or that you will happen to be in the right place at the right time, or that you will learn from those around you or the environment you have been showing up to.

Read more: How to Get What You Want

We can often find ourselves in a situation where what we need to do to move forward in our lives, make progress and achieve our goals is to learn how to overcome procrastination and get unstuck.  Good time management has no room for avoidance, uncertainty and putting things off.  Overcoming procrastination is high on the list of things that need urgent attention in many people’s lives, but just how, exactly do we stop procrastination?

Feeling stuck, overwhelmed and unsure how to move forward with a particular goal or project is unpleasant, uncomfortable, even painful.  If we can recognize where this is going on in our lives and learn how to overcome procrastination and get unstuck in the areas of highest importance for us, we can dramatically improve our happiness and quality of life.  Our time management depends on us being able to actually carry out what we have planned to do.                                    

Read more: How to Overcome Procrastination and Get Unstuck