Keep Going
It was both inspiring and daunting to discover that Jack Canfield, famous author of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books had 144 rejections before his first “soup” book was published. Would you have kept trying after that 100th rejection? I think that I would have given up after rejection number 50 or even 20! This really made me think about how I do (or don’t) persevere through rejection. Imagine if Jack would have given up and missed out on all that success and the impact on all the readers of his inspiring books.
Patience & Letting Go of Perfection
I read an article by Tama Kieves this past week that inspired me to keep going when it seems that it is just taking too long or I’m not doing enough or I’m not doing it well enough,
“Patience demands the courage to show up ineffectively, partially, and incompletely. You don’t have to be perfect while approaching the behaviors that will perfect you. Practice allowing yourself to do what you can do, when you can do it. If you didn’t do something yesterday, do it today. If you can’t do all of it, do some of it.”
My colleague, Debbie Exner (her site linked) and I made a video together to promote the mPWR10 coaching program that we both love. It was a big challenge to fit it into our busy schedules, we fit in practicing what we would say in little breaks of time between appointments and sometimes even while driving; not exactly highly effective. We ended up filming on Saturday morning at 6:30am! As we tried multiple takes of the video, I had to silence the voice in my head, “Oh it is good enough, I’m tired and do not want to do another take.” Or “This is going to be horrible and not good enough.” Finally after around eight tries, we had it and it turned out great. Not perfect but better than that first take or so when I was ready to give up. If I had let that perfectionist voice take over then I would have no video at all and if my impatient voice had gotten it’s way then it would have been a much lower quality.
Allow yourself to be patient and forgive yourself if you didn’t do what you set out to do. Let the past go and just begin again, and again. Remember that most successes start with a lot of failures or rejections and persevere with patience!
photo credit: gemb1 via Flickr creative commons