Reaching goals – the remaining 90% – pure persistence

Achieving goals requires perseverance.

Here’s the proof: In 1915 Ty Cobb set an incredible baseball record by stealing 96 bases. Seven years later, Max Carey set the second-best record with 51 stolen bases.

Was Cobb twice as good as Carey?

Consider this: Cobb made 134 attempts. Carey did 53.

So Carey’s average was much better.

However, Cobb made 81 more attempts and was rewarded with 44 more stolen bases.

Frank Bettger highlights this strong point on page 238 of his fascinating classic:

How I rose from failure to sales success

When you get behind the great success stories in a given field, you often find that the most successful ones have tried more and put more hours into the task than anyone else.

In other words, they give the law of averages a chance to work for you! They keep striking out, often through thick and thin.

With the achievement of goals, this excellent quality of perseverance and your bed partner perseverance is absolutely essential.

Yes, the above six steps are essential and crucial too, BUT if you don’t persist, your wonderful plan may go down the drain. Your vivid mental images can simply evaporate into thin air. Achieving goals just turns into wishful thinking.

Achieving goals requires you to do it day after day.

Then you have GUARANTEED results, eventually!

Mental toughness

To maintain this type of momentum, you have to develop mental toughness.

Being mentally tough means minimizing the effects of discouragement and turning negative into positive.

Jack Black, in his enlightening book “MindStore”, uses a computer expression to combat negativity: “Delete that program”.

Whenever a negative thought comes to your mind or when others make negative comments, tell yourself, “Eliminate that Program” and replace it with a positive thought.

For example, when you find yourself thinking, “This is just not working, this is useless and a waste of time,” activate mental toughness by saying “DELETE THAT PROGRAM.”

Instead, think, “What do I need to do to make this work?”

It is true that negative mental habits are difficult to break.

It takes time and perseverance, but oh, the rewards when you do it!

The remaining 90%

So do we understand why the title of this last session is:

“Reaching goals: the remaining 90% – pure persistence”?

It really comes down to that.

Just go ahead, persist, persist, persist, and let the old law of averages work for you.

Achieving goals will become your reality!