Do you really want to succeed in life? Is there a goal you would like to achieve? Do you want to be happier, healthier or wealthier? One of the most important ingredients in achieving something great in your life is persistence. Persistence has the power to transform wishes into reality. John D. Rockefeller once said, “I don’t think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It surpasses almost everything, even nature.”

Persistence separates the extraordinary from the ordinary. You too can be successful and achieve great things in your life if you cultivate the habit of persistence. Everything is possible if you persist. People who persevere never accept defeat. They just keep moving in the direction of their goals.

One of the main reasons why goals are not achieved and why most people are not successful is a lack of persistence. Initially you are very excited and highly motivated when you make the decision to achieve your new goal and you are determined to succeed. However, once an obstacle, big or small, appears, more often than not, you allow that obstacle to discourage you from continuing to do whatever it takes to achieve your goal and succeed.

People who have achieved excellence have encountered many obstacles while climbing the ladder to success. Such obstacles would have discouraged most ordinary people long ago. These extraordinary people, however, refused to give up. They persevered until they succeeded. Thomas Edison is a very good example of the power of perseverance. When asked how he managed to persist in the face of continued failure, he replied, “I didn’t fail. I just found 10,000 ways not to invent the light bulb.” Most people fail simply because they gave up too soon. If they had persisted, success would have been theirs.

You need to persist despite the obstacles you encounter. You must keep telling yourself that as long as you keep trying, as long as you keep pushing yourself to do what you have to do to achieve what you really want, you will succeed. Always remember the wise words of Og Mandino, who once said, “I will persist until I succeed. I will always take another step. If that doesn’t help, I will take another, and another. Truly, one step at a time is no too difficult… I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking”.

If you persist, you will triumph over the person who has more money, more education, or even more talents than you. Calvin Coolidge was right when he said: “Nothing in the world can replace persistence. Talent will not do it; nothing in the world is more common than talented men who fail. Genius will not do it; genius without reward is a proverb. Education won’t do it; the world is full of educated bums. Only persistence and determination are omnipotent.”

Persistence has incredible power. Constantly act in the direction of your goals and trust that the best result will always materialize. Never give up. Don’t stop singing if you don’t get accepted at an audition, don’t quit that job you always wanted, don’t stop striving to be the person you always wanted to be, don’t give up on your big dreams. Always remember that all great people started out as ordinary people but they had a dream and they persevered and with a positive mental attitude they achieved extraordinary success. If they persisted and succeeded, so can you! So start persisting now and remember what Winston Churchill said: “Never, never, never give up!”