Are you living a life of devoted persistence?
After reading my third book of the week, another very positive, happy, happy, joy, joy motivational number, and finally writing a nice 3000 word best of for my website (hooray, I have packed up the camp and I'm moving), I decided to get really honest about myself and ask the question, Am I living a life of devoted persistence?
First I decided to look up what 'devoted persistence' actually means:
Devoted
- Extremely loving and loyal
- To concentrate on a particular pursuit, occupation, purpose or cause
- Can also be associated with following a religion
(see also: close, constant, dedicated, dependable, passionate, purposeful, unyielding, unwavering)
Persistence
- The act of persisting
- The state or quality of being persistent
- continuance of an effect after the cause is removed
- To keep doing, thinking and being in spite of opposition or difficulty or negativity.
- To keep asking.
(See also durability, enduringness, tenacious, lastingness, strength, determination, tenacity, resolution, pluck, stamina, grit, endurance, constancy, tirelessness)
So we now know what it means, but how do we live it?
I read a post yesterday that oozed living a life 'devoted persistence'. The post was by Cav1966 https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cav1966/blog/a-year-long-jou.... What was even more wonderful was she openly offered her story to us to used to encourage others to take this WA journey.
I was in awe of the unwavering faith that she had to just keep going, even when living out of her car. If you read the blog you will get a story of losing pretty much everything and having to start again. A story of writing blogs and doing WA training from her car, whilst not having a home. But it wasn't the story of what went wrong that captured me, it was her 'devoted persistence' to building her business.
What is your why? (No the real why)
Something Cav1966 said in her reply to my comment was, 'you have to know your why.' And when I looked at her training, she went further to say, 'No the real why'.
This got me thinking, so many people (including me) come here wanting to make money, and right now would be very nice thank you. We want, and NEED the cash, we may be struggling, or have bills to pay, or some may just want more money or lots of money.
If my 'Why' is money. What happens if the money doesn't come in a year? I quit right? However, if my goal is money, to be able to fulfil my 'Why', which is freedom, and learning how to be free and then teaching that to my children or others. What happens if in a year I haven't made any money, but I am still learning and building, I am still on my freedom trail. I keep going.
This isn't to say that if you have worked for 2 years and there is no money, to get you to the final destination of your why, that you carry on regardless. As I have said in my previous 'Get Feedback' post. It is incredibly important that you seek,help and guidance and feedback regularly.
There is nothing wrong with money. It is perfectly wonderful to have money as a Goal. Money allows us to have food, a home, clothes. Or if we dare to dream it money could bring the ability to advance, to live an abundant life.
But is it the great big pile of money, or the figure on your bank balance that you have devoted persistence for? or is it the sense of freedom and peace. Is it being your own boss, or the things the money could buy, or the lifestyle you could have, or how you can help others that is really your why?
To Act
I have already said in my blog 'The success Equation' and many have mentioned in their blogs this week, that one of the key components of success here is ACTION. So I think we have all got the idea we need to actually DO SOMETHING, to even be in with a chance of succeeding.
But are we willing to take action, even when the circumstances are all against it? Are you willing to be loving and loyal to your pursuit (your why) even if you have to do it out of your car, on your phone?
To live and follow your purpose with 'devoted persistence', means you still take action even if times are hard, really hard. Or even if the whole world is telling you not to. The famous story about Henry Ford and his desire to build his V8 engine illustrates living a life of devoted persistence. All of his scientists and engineers and advisers all kept saying 'It can't be done', his answer 'KEEP GOING, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES'
To Be
To live a life of devoted persistence you need to be in a quality or state as being persistent. You have to live it and breathe it every minute of every day. Now this doesn't mean it has to be all you do in life, but it has to be in your very ;being, behind all you do in your life.
Something @Cav1966 mentioned in her blog was that she warned, be careful what you state to the Universe because you might just get it!, Whether you believe in manifestation or universal guidance or not it is a fact that we make our reality. And guess what, if you keep telling yourself and the universe 'this won't work' or keep thinking 'what if' then eventually, it won't work and you might get the 'what if'.
As an actress, I have to become characters and inhabit worlds that don't exist. But believe me when I am in that show and on that stage, I am that character and the world we have built is as real as the one we live and breathe in. I am not Sara playing the character of a Clown who lost her nose, I am the clown who lost her nose, and I am at the circus.
This concept of being and truly believing is called 'As If'. You see if your mind believes you are a successful affiliate marketer, and that penetrates into your very being, and you truly believe it, then guess what? YOU are a successful affiliate marketer.
In fact if you approach affiliate marketing with devoted persistence, then you are already a successful affiliate marketer. And I'll let you into a little actors secret, if you believe it, if you live it 'as if' then that is contagious and the people around you, will believe you are a successful affiliate marketer! Just like an audience suspends their disbelief for a couple of hours to go to the circus and see a clown who lost her nose. They believe it is real.
What do you think the Universe will do if you ask for your why, and then work with a devoted persistence to get it? Yep it will get right behind you and help, and help you find the how.
Shakespeare famously said in his play Hamlet 'To be, or not to be that is the question'. (OK he was talking about living or dying) but in the case of pursuing your dreams your 'why' then please BE, and be audaciously!
Can you continue even after the newbie excitement has gone?
So here is another key to persistence. You have to keep being it. Living a devoted persistence doesn't stop. In fact, it would be more accurate to say, it is what kicks in the minute your mind thinks about or contemplates quitting.
I arrived all bright-eyed and full of newbie enthusiasm. I was shouting from the roof tops about how amazing everything was, and running up that mountain without a thought. I was up at 5am and blogging every spare moment of the day. I was in the words of MacDonald advertisers 'Loving it'.
But then the honeymoon period was over, it got hard. The training was over and I had to start doing the real work. The reality of affiliate marketing had sunk in, that the money isn't instant, it could possibly takes years. I have to work for nothing and with an unwavering faith that this can work, even if I have No personal proof.
Then life got hard. It was like the Universe (or maybe my very own mind) was testing me and asking, Do you want it Sara? Do you really want it? OK are you willing to overcome this to get it? and this? oh and take this for good measure!
But by living with a devoted persistence I know that success isn't always just in reaching the big end goal, there can be mini successes along the way. Success is in the realisation that thare many ends and many beginnings. Success is also in each problem you overcome, each step you go up, it is in the fight. It is being Rocky in his fight with Ivan Drago. He keeps getting hit and knocked down, but he keeps getting up and punching back until he wins.
As Winston Churchil so aptly stated ' Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm'.
The why might change, the how, might change, you might change, the people around you, might change, but devoted persistence never changes, just like Henry Ford, it just keeps going,
Can you keep going even if every single person around you is telling you it won't work?
Now this one is a biggie! and is going to need to draw on devoted persistence more than any other, because negativity and doubt are catching. They are like parasites that try to burrow into to you and if you let them in your pursuit of your why is doomed! But guess what? Devoted persistence is the antibiotic to doubt and negativity.
When I started at WA, No one in my extended family (Mum and Sister) or friends understood what on earth I was doing. Here I was in financial difficulty, but I wasn't going out to get the third job they were advising me to do. I was starting a business, following a dream, with No money and nothing but my devoted persistence to fund me.
They gave me 'the look' and even the 'it's a scam' speech. However, something inside of me kept saying, keep going, this is it, it is the way. When life got really hard, I quit my employed job! Odd decision you may say, and my family were in dismay. But I know that by keep going to a soul-destroying job, that filled me with fear and loathing, was really not the place to change this situation.
Now I am not by any means promoting quitting jobs, that pay the bills. I wouldn't normally just quit a job when I am in severe financial difficulty. This is about faith and devoted persistence. When my Mum tells me 'Sara, you can't go on like this, what are you going to do?' I now answer 'whatever it takes'.
At the moment that means I need another job to put the food on the table, but those two jobs are now coming with a side order of devoted persistence to reach my dream, and my why.
Too much grit to quit
Last year I climbed Ben Nevis, which is a mountain in the highlands of Scotland. It is a tough climb and takes around eight hours up and down. I had climbed this old friend three times before, but that was years ago when I was much younger and much fitter.
So in my midlife craziness I decided to go back and climb the mountain, with No real training. My sister and I took the day long drive, set up camp and looked up Ben. My sister looked petrified, I was filled with passion and excitement. The energy was flowing through me.
However, half-way up, it got tough, I was tired physically and mentally and the top was so far away. I had to pee in public, and the mountain threw all it had at me, blazing sun, snow to climb over and it wrecked my knees and toes.
Three quarters the way up, I was done. The mountain had knocked me on my butt (literally) and I wasn't sure that I could get up. The thought to quit crossed my mind, and then the voices in the head start. 'What on earth were you thinking?' 'You can't do this', 'A middle-aged woman chasing a stupid dream of climbing mountains'. Does the mind chatter sound familiar? My mind had unleashed the ego into self destruct mode.
This is when your devoted persistence kicks in. You see inside I do believe I can climb mountains, it makes me feel completed connected and pure joy, No matter how much pain. My devoted persistence gave me too much grit to quit. I got to the top of the mountain and back down, and into the pub by 15.00, to watch England play football! Climbing mountains is part of my why.
Final Thoughts
OK I have gone on long enough, I didn't realise I had rambled my way to over 2000 words. I think you all get the picture. So I will summarise by saying, finding your why (No the real why) and have devoted persistence to go for it, and keep going.
Ask for help and feedback regularly, Devoted persistence does not mean carrying on with no results or end, sometimes a change is needed. We all live in the real world here, we need to finally achieve that success.
Who doesn't want to live their life constant, dedicated, dependable, passionate, purposeful, unyielding and unwavering durability. With an enduringness, tenacious, lastingness, strength, determination, tenacity, resolution, pluck, stamina, grit, endurance, constancy, tirelessness.
Thank you @Cav1966 for inspiring this post
Much Love
Sara
Recent Comments
60
In the past I was avery positive woman loving and caring have a jop a car , a house, creat family . After the war am on the other side of life .
I open my eyes I found my self homles joples refugee in lands we don't know any thing about it . Why we are her ? What happened?
am nerves shouting screaming all the time geting sick no sleep.
am sorry this is not the place to tell my story .
I start over with learning New language with my poor English I will stand up and fight her with WA community .
To save my family my self from sickness.
Thank you sara for great motivation and love.
Much love .
This is completely the place to tell your story. Your story is completely what this post is about. Devoted persistence isn't about being positive 100% of the time, or any of the time for that matter. It is actually about looking the bad right in the face, even with tears streaming down your face, and saying I will not give up.
It is your story, losing your home, your country but still learning a new language and trying to save your family.
You are truly the definition of devoted persistence and a true inspiration!
Wow Sara! You rang my bell! What a beautiful post, oozing with great motivation and love. Great job.
Thanks so much.
Joe
Thank you so much Joe, it ended up being a bit of a long one. thanks so much for taking the time to read it. I'm glad you got something from it.
Wow, Sara! This in 5 blogs in one! So much information, so much value - I am exhausted after reading it, lol!
Thank you for yet another incredible share.
Blessings
Louise x
Yes it did stretch into a bit of a mammoth one : )
Thank you Louise for taking the time to read it and comment. I appreciate it
BOOM!
Sorry Sara, however...Me no speak British.
Maybe I will run it through Google Translate to churn out the English version of the post.
Now, after that sweet intro, we revert back to earth after having been deprived of much needed oxygen by elevation while climbing that peak in Scotland...
And yes, another great post, with which I concur in sum and substance, but in a small part, that being in that every journey has a destination, and in that sense, if the intent of the journey is to journey for the journey's sake or to delay on purpose reaching that final destination, out of fear of not having achieved what the journey was to achieve, then no matter the WHY it cannot be called a success.
Yes we can keep on learning, we all do so, myself included among millions others. But...
Yes we can always add another widget or plugin to our websites to make things better, faster and more efficient. But...
Yes we can keep on adding a ton of new decorations to the Christmas tree (this is the secular viewpoint and not the religious one). But...
So, to sum it up, being the eternal student, having the most up to date widget and plugin loaded website(s) or the best Christmas tree on the block is not a measure of success if the implementation of that knowledge yields no monetary rewards or the ability to make money by teaching all of it to others; as is a website with tons of bells of whistles without traffic or income generation, or like a super decked Christmas tree from under which there are zero gifts (again this being the commercial or secular viewpoint).
An eternal student would best serve others by becoming a teacher.
A loaded up website with tons of plugins and widgets would be best serving everyone by offering to and selling to an audience seeking to buy such products/goods/services.
A Christmas tree adorned to the brim with lights and decorations would be best delivering that commercial and secular purpose by having the desired gift boxes under it and fulfilling everyone's expectations.
This is not a pro money viewpoint, there are much greater noble causes out there and they too need funding or financing.
However, I caution over and over again, as Roope Klutu said in one of his recent inspiration posts here, in encouraging WA members not to give up, because, and I paraphrase here: "99% percent of your competitors will fail".
Within that 99% can be many WA members here, tired of doing all they have learned without any success in sight, burnt our, misunderstood by friends and family and, in spite of being part of a 1.4 million WA members, feeling lost and alone, disillusioned.
I think that another member here said it in one of his posts that there are some who will in the end be affected by the "sellers of dreams".
Let us take our knowledge and skills we have gathered here and elsewhere and use it not in the most uniform of ways but rather in many various tried and tested ways to reach those final destinations.
Let us all take all of that knowledge and skills and help others who have fallen into despair to show them out of their conundrum by pointing to thinking outside the conventional box yet to tried and proven efficient methods of reaching their goals.
Whatever each one decides to do is their choice but I for one I do not want to see yet another single solitary member here reach the burnout point.
We all can do better than that in order to prevent it.
Blessings!
BOOM!
I am not anti money, I am pro what the money can do for me. It is the end, end goal that motivates me. The experience I share with my family, because I have the money.
It is the home I can provide and the meals I can put on the table because I have the money. When I am thinking what is it that keeps me going, what is it that stops me quitting. It is not the commission full stop. It is the look on the face of my daughter when I tell her we can go out today, because of the commission.
I love money, not the pieces of paper or coins, but because it is a means to an end, or a beginning.
I agree affiliate marketing, is about affiliating and yes making money. But that doesn't keep me here long term, just the same as doing my employed job couldn't, yet it paid me money.
It is living this very short life to the full every moment of every day, and yes we need money to do that, but I can choose how I do it. Do I do it selling my soul, or listening to my soul?
Money will never be my end goal, just the means to get to my end goal.
Much Love
sara
ps great comment ; ) and did we lose another one?
You put a good case and maybe my post has relayed the wrong message. I am not saying we should be at WA for the sheer joy. Of course I would quit if I was here for 2 years with no money being earned.
Of course one of the steps to my why, is making money from affiliating. It is having the Christmas tree with the presents under. But my 'Why' is not the money, or the presents under the tree.
My why is the holiday I can share and experience with my family. Or experiencing the sheer Joy on my Son and daughters faces when they open them presents. And the icing on the cake (or the star on top of the tree) is that I loved doing the thing that earned the money, that allowed me to put the joy on the faces of my children.
BOOM!
Much Love xx
BOOM!
Sara, as I have said in my response, those of us who are content with the WHY and the results we get, monetary or not, are well served by all you have shared in your post.
You will not that I have put the caveat in that I agreed with most of it in sum and substance but for one part, in which I have detailed my dissent.
But please try to focus on those in other situations, countries and continents who are not as blessed and fortunate to speak or to write in English, to be able to afford the month or yearly fee in USD or to have the ability (even in their own native language to write incessantly blog after blog, struggle with tech issues to which solutions exist in Google search results mostly in English, etc.).
It is very painful to see so many reach burnout, and yet all the while there are other tried and tested methods in which they can find success, hardly talked about or discussed here, never mind contemplated or implemented.
A beach is a combination of sand, salt water and atmosphere (air).
A beach with salt water but without the sand = ocean
A beach without salt water but with sand = desert
The third element, air is present in both.
If we just blog, and surely there is great value in that in so many ways, while we can learn so much from that, we can be the best bloggers out there and there are such specialty blogging platforms and sites without any monetary incentives or benefits, other than from sharing info and knowledge.
But that is not the beach, the complete beach most of us seek.
It may just be the ocean, without sight of land.
It may be the desert, without sight of any vegetation, water or life.
Again, the choice belongs to each WA member.
But l do not want to see any other member reach burnout or like the one I have mentioned before talk about sellers of dreams.
We can all collectively do better to prevent that and I hope those feeling that way will reach out.
We will provide real actionable advice. So long they care to hear it.
Blessings!
It is truly wonderful that you care so much.
Lets hope as a community we are all saved from burnout or surviving on sellers dreams. That through the training and the knowledge we have here that everyone can reach whatever their why or end goal is.
As you say, lets hope we all feel secure and supported enough to ask for help, when it is needed.
Amen Sara!
We have never left. We are on the same platform and waiting for the same train to the same destination (not the Harry Potter platform and train or destination though).
We are on the same page.
WWG1WGA!
Blessings!
OK... I'm better now...
Money was/is a goal when I started looking for opportunities online.
Learning how was/is a goal.
My Why?
To learn something new, to experience something else, to climb a Mountain.
WOW! Incredible words of love to all of us. Thank you Sara. You have written so well what we all go through. We who continue are overcomes to the end.
Laura
Between you and Cathy, I have tears in my eyes!
I will be back to leave a more inspirational comment when I stop 'Happy Bawling'...
Did I get you again? Well I just bawled my eyes out in the cinema at Wreck It Ralph breaks the internet! so we are even hahahah
See more comments
You are such a fantastic writer!!!
Love reading your posts, and thank you.... as I have just sat here and replied to a post here saying I am too tired to do my WA stuff.
I haven't written anything for my site for a week n a half, I'm exhausted...being back on the farm feels like you did half way up that mountain.
My Why...money is the bonus but for me being able to put all the information I want to share with people on my site, and hopefully help people, I'll be happy as, that's my why.
Anyway great to get some Sara posts...have missed them
Daisy
It is so lovely to have the time to write a post, they just seem to be fighting to get out.
It's so hard isn't, when life gets busy. My advice is just write something each day (if you can), or just do one thing for your website (get comments, do some social media posting etc). As when I had left my website, I found it so hard to get motivated to write again for it.
This website is going to be a true lesson in devoted persistence! I have to dig really deep. And it is taking a mighty lot of grit!
I now have many why's. I have decided to have some smaller whys, with an over arching BIG WHY. That way I can have the success of achieving some smaller successes, that will hopefully motivate the BIG ONE lol
I've quit my employed job, so I need to get another evening job ready for September, which will mean I am back to 2 jobs, 2 kids. So I am going to make the most of the summer holidays and try and post as often as I can now.
Anyway I'd best let you get to the far, and stop, as this answer is almost as long as this very long post lol
I like the idea of smaller whys...great thinking Sara.
I guess even if I write some of a post each day I will get there.
Thanks for your words of encouragement. Enjoy the holidays
Yeah for me, I figured getting 250/500 words a day written is far better than being in the 2.5 week block I was in. And I have found just by sitting to write something each day, with no agenda or pressure, I have actually ended up writing more in a short time. So bonus!!!
BOOM
We can do it!
X
BOOM! (these BOOMS are catching lol)
yes we can!
(hahaha have you been speaking to Gabriel lol)
Yup lol