Have you ever failed so badly at an outcome you set as a boss, employee, parent, significant other or a friend that the thought of doing it again made you feel sick?
I personally had that experience several times in my life and I have had an opportunity to coach many others that also experienced such failures.
Many of these failures had nothing to do with knowledge or preparation. Many failures were outside of the control of the people experiencing the failure. Here is one thing I have learned on my journey: there are a lot of pessimistic, smart people that have not had much success in their lives, and it has nothing to do with their IQ. In fact, there was a story shared with me about a 55-year-old gentleman that had an IQ of 120. When asked why he didn’t start the business he dreamed about and often shared with others, or why he never got married, he cited the statistics of ALL the failed businesses and marriages that he read about during his research.
My question to you (and would have been to him) is how high is your PQ? I don’t mean your pessimistic quotient. I mean your Persistence or Perseverance Quotient.
Calvin Coolidge once said, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not — nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not — unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not — the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On!' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
The conventional definition of persistence/perseverance is refusing to give up on your outcome in spite of difficulty or opposition.
In a study conducted in New York, researchers found that 95% of the people who set clear, specific, outcomes and had a High “PQ” were successful in reaching their outcomes.
Consider Beethoven, who composed most of his beloved works after losing his hearing; Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder who produced incredible music while being blind; Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind from the age of 19 months yet wrote 12 books and was the first blind person to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree; and Terry Fox who was a runner in spite of being a double amputee from cancer. Persistence/perseverance is what sets them apart from those with the same abilities, but little drive.
I have been asked many times, “How do you increase your “PQ”?” The answer is simple; however, it is not easy.
- Set specific outcomes that you are 100% committed to accomplish.
- Identify several benefits you will receive once you have reached the outcome.
- Take the first step.
- Now comes the toughest, however, most important ingredient to ultimate success: be in the moment.
There is NO way to prepare for some of the things that might get thrown at you, however, if you are truly committed, you will Just Do WIT (Whatever It Takes) in those moments to keep moving forward. You will never know the true character of a person when the sun is shining. It is in the moments when the storm is raging, those moments of adversity, that you get to see what you, and others, are really made of.
So how high is your “PQ”? The opportunity to raise it begins with an outcome. Let’s get started right now because we ALL occupy the largest room in the house, and that is the room for improvement.
How will you “Create a Better Version of Yourself” in 2017?
