By Jeremy Rolleston|2025-06-07T12:35:56+00:00September 21st, 2010|Perseverence|
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQCY1zPbIZs
This ad speaks of perseverence. Of keeping going when it just feels like hard work. Of picking yourself up again. Of keeping focussed on where you want to go and who you want to be and on what you want to achieve. And I am personally walking that journey at the moment too !
Perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose. It means more than trying. It means more than working hard. It is a willingness to bind yourself emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually to an idea or task until it has been completed. Perseverance demands a lot. It means succeeding because you are determined to, not because you’re destined to. This is important because if you want your dreams to come to pass they wont just happen. To achieve them will inevitably require perseverance.
And if you think about it, perseverance doesn’t really come into play until you are tired and close to giving up. When you’re fresh, excited and energetic, you approach your goals with vigour. But when you’re tired, when you’re over it, when you can’t see how things are going to work, when the obstacles seem insurmountable, when you’re disappointed, when you feel like quitting and when your dream still seems a long way off … that is when you need perseverance !
What highly successful person do you know who gave up ? How many people do you know who have been richly rewarded for quitting ? The greatest achievers don’t sit back and wait for success because they think they deserve it. They keep moving forward and persevere because they are determined to do so. I could give lots of examples here, but let me give you just one – Walt Disney
Walt Disney supposedly had his loan request rejected by 301 banks before he finally got a yes. The loan he received allowed him to build Disneyland, the first and most famous theme park in history. That’s perseverence. And as if that wasn’t enough, Disney also struggled to release some of his now-classic films. He was told ‘Mickey Mouse ‘would fail because the mouse would “terrify women.” Distributors rejected ‘The Three Little Pigs’, saying it needed more characters. ‘Pinocchio’ was shut down during production and Walt Disney had to rewrite the entire storyline. In 1944, at the suggestion of his daughter, Disney tried to adapt the Pamela Travers novel Mary Poppins into a film. However, the author Travers had absolutely no interest in selling Mary Poppins to Hollywood. To win her over, Disney visited Travers at her England home repeatedly for the next 16 years. After more than a decade-and-a-half of persuasion, Travers was overcome by Disney’s charm and vision for the film, and finally gave him permission to bring Mary Poppins to the big screen. The result is a timeless classic.
Wow ! Now that’s perseverence.
So my challenge today …
In what area do you need to remind yourself of the end goal and to keep on walking / running one step and one day at a time towards it ?
