Perseverance: Transforming Vision into Reality
Sticking to it, staying the course, picking yourself up and moving on – this is what perseverance is made of. Great leaders embody this secret ingredient to success. In the short term, perseverance ensures we complete and get the job done. In the long term, our perseverance calls up the faith and determination it takes to transform long-term visions and dreams into reality. In times when you struggle to stay motivated, want to quit, or move onto the next best thing, ask yourself three key questions:
What’s really getting in the way? Start by first uncovering the core issues. Find the obstacles that stop you in your tracks or in some cases, have you prematurely jumping ship. Underlying drivers can include avoiding conflict or judgment by others, fear of failure, fear of making mistakes, poor physical energy, or not having clarity in one’s purpose or convictions.
Take for example, Susan, a group manager in a leading software development company who felt stuck on a variety of projects. Susan described loving the “big picture thinking” at the start of any project, but then struggled keeping the ball moving forward. For the first two weeks of coaching, I asked Susan to self-observe when she got distracted, procrastinated or felt stalled on an important project. After a couple of weeks, she was stunned to uncover that her biggest roadblock occurred at critical decision making points that required her to stand up to difficult, aggressive colleagues or fight for additional resources.
What do I need to do? When we know what the underlying issues are behind our stalling or desire to quit, we are much better equipped to identify what to do. The beauty of looking into one’s own perseverance is that the answer often leads us to the development of other leadership competencies such as communications effectiveness, focus, discipline, or resilience.
In the case of Susan, we actually first worked on rebuilding her energy levels – she was physically exhausted at the start of coaching having worried and mentally churned on “being stuck”. One of the major paradoxes of perseverance is that it often requires we know when to take a rest and recharge in order to keep going.
With a strong physical base, we then focused on Susan’s core issue of strengthening her voice with others, the point where Susan most lost her ability to persevere. She was able to identify the colleagues who most threw her off balance, created pre-meeting rituals to help her stay centered, and practiced the skills of advocacy and influencing others.
What am I really working for? The quality of perseverance is especially critical to reaching long-term goals, dreams or vision for yourself or your organization. Long-term goals require faith, passion, and conviction to keep us moving in the right direction even when we are unable to see immediate results or achievement.
For Susan, she realized that she had not explicitly considered how her projects directly aligned with the strategic priorities of the company. As she realized the importance of her work to the organization’s future revenue growth, she felt more fueled to step up as leader for her team.
Ultimately, it’s the purpose, or commitment behind something, that expands our perseverance – fueling our ability to continue. Great athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders know this about the principle of mastery – a vision infused by purpose helps us to stick to something over the long term. Knowing “the why” behind what we are doing helps us to persevere even in the face of nay-saying peers or family, even in the face of set-backs or mistakes, even in the face of our own self-doubt and lack of confidence. If you know in your heart the goal or vision is right, keep walking in that
Reflection Questions:
- How do you respond to setbacks, failures, or mistakes? What emotions do you experience?
- What network of support do you have to help you during these experiences?
- What dreams or goals could you reach by learning from these challenging times and continuing on?
– Amy Jen Su