Tag: Persistance

The Process

Posted on by jabittan
In The Obstacle is the Way, author Ryan Holiday looks at the unprecedented success of Alabama head football coach Nick Saban to share a lesson about reaching our goals. He includes the following quote from Saban,
“Don’t think about winning the SEC championship. Don’t think about the national championship. Think about what you need to do in this drill, on this play, in  this moment. That’s the process: Let’s think about what we can do today, the task at hand.”
This brilliant quote about focus shifts our perspective from the long run success we aim toward to our current actions, but in a way that ensures that our actions always align with our ultimate goal. Holiday pieces apart Saban’s quote by writing,
“Okay, you’ve got to do something very difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize.”
What is so powerful about the process is that each step and each action builds toward the final goal. We do not arbitrarily shoot toward where we think we want to go, but we build each moment into a blueprint that guides us to our ultimate destination. By constantly reflecting on our actions and striving performing at our best with each task in front of us, we make sure that we continually grow. We push ourselves to bring excellence into each moment so that whether or not we reach out goal, we end up in a place where habit of excellence allows us to be successful.
Holiday’s quote shows us that success stems from growth through the process and in being mindful of how we perform each action. We may not end up being the champion, receiving the promotion, or winning the contest, but we will have built skills that will serve us in the future. The process may not always give us the reward we hope for, but it prepares us for any obstacle that we may face, and will build toward exceptional outcomes.
I think this quote on its own seems to contradict the message I presented from Holiday in my last three passages. However, when you look deeper you see the way the process aligns with the idea of playing for the long run and going beyond the whistle. The process allows us to take our long term goal and break it into bite size mini goals that constantly build in an intentional direction. The process provides us with clarity to overcome obstacles and challenges by focusing on the here and now, rather than the cumulative roadblocks we know we will face. It is also aligned so that each individual action builds toward our final goal and allows us to persist toward our destination.

Discouragement and Persistance

Posted on by jabittan
Continuing his writing about focusing on the long term over the short term, author Ryan Holiday presents a new idea of persistence and brings a perspective to the discouragement we all feel from time to time. Holiday writes, “It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.” The power in this quote is Holiday’s acknowledgment of our feelings and reminder that it is ok to feel discouraged when we are struggling along our path. He helps us look at our emotions and take a step back to think about what they mean.

I really enjoy when author’s look at our emotional states and explain that we should not be critical of ourselves for feeling a certain way. It is normal to feel discouraged when facing obstacles, and in a very realistic manner, Holiday accepts our discouragement and provides us with inspiration to press forward. His advice is powerful because it is honest about the way we will feel when trying to reach out goals, and does not simply paint a rosy future of how nice our life will be once we surmount the obstacles in front of us. By pushing through the discomfort and inching along, we can reach our goals, but there are times where we will not feel great about our journey.

Holiday’s message is that our continued efforts, despite our desire to quit, is what true persistence is all about. Persistence is not just continued action, but it is not giving up when it does not feel as though we can be successful. When our emotions have been shot down and all we can do is crawl along toward our goal, according to Holiday, we have reached a point where persistence is all we have. By viewing persistence and discouragement in open terms, we can better understand that our goals won’t be easy and that overcoming our goals will not be as glamorous as a Hollywood movie montage would suggest, but that incremental action can nevertheless drive us to where we set our sights.