Have you ever felt that you needed to breathe new life into your motivation and desire for success? It's quite normal to hit stumbling blocks and sometimes to feel completely unmotivated. Recently, I came across a simple, three-word approach to achieving the results you want in life. We can call it the CPR approach. In this case, CPR does not stand for cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. It stands for consistent, persistent and resistant. Let's take a closer look at the importance of these three words to our motivation and achievement. Consistent You're stuck when you do the same things over and over again yet expect different results. On the other hand, you're consistent when you do a few small things on a daily basis that contribute to success. Remember the children's story of the tortoise and the hare? It was the steady plodding of the tortoise that won the race. Persistent It's been said that a champion is simply someone who, when knocked down, gets up one more time than everyone else. In a book about the Ebola virus, "The Hot Zone," you'll find a story that has much to say about the power of persistence. One theory is that the ebola virus began in a cave in the side of a mountain in Africa. This cave is so huge that elephants can walk deep inside the cave and sharpen their tusks against the walls of the cave. It is thought that perhaps this huge cave was created by elephants sharpening their tusks on the side of the mountain and that over thousands of years this enormous cave was formed. While we don't have thousands of years, we each have 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week and 52 weeks a year in which to practice the power of persistence. Resistant On the journey to success, there are many things to which we need to be resistant. We need to be resistant to those who say we cannot accomplish what we want. Col. Harlan Sanders was turned down more than 1,100 times before someone was interested in his recipe for chicken. A penniless Sylvester Stallone was offered over $300,000 for the screenplay for "Rocky." He turned it down because his goal was to star in it himself. They all pursued their dreams in spite of the obstacles. Pay more attention to the burning desire in your heart than to those who say you just have heartburn. Not only do we sometimes need to be resistant to others, we sometimes need to be resistant to ourselves as well. Sometimes we need to be resistant to our own laziness and inertia. The next time you're tempted to hit the snooze button just one more time, ask yourself what good 10 more minutes of sleep will do anyway. At other times, we need to be resistant to our own "self-talk." Self-talk is simply what we consistently think about our abilities. Whether we tell ourselves positive things or negative things about ourselves, our brains will believe either. An example would be the difference between saying "I've got too much to do" vs. "I can handle this." Consistent. Persistent. Resistant. Three simple words to breathe life into our motivation and keep us on the path to success. |
