I've long considered myself a work in progress. But if you're like me, and maybe you are, maybe you aren't, you consider yourself a work in progress too. So, accepting that I am a work in progress, why is it that I so frequently forget it is the case? I've been given as a gift a stubborn case of tenacity. I love to set a goal or try a thing that invokes some level of terror, and like a stalking kitten intent on a moving ball of string, aim my site at it, and then pounce and try to make it mine. I love the intention, focus, and pouncing with the hope of having the goal in my grasp and wrestling it to completion. I like the rolling around on the floor with it until I really do feel I have captured it and it becomes a pleasant plaything.
As I have moved more into coaching, and have worked to encourage others to attain their goals and dreams for themselves, I find myself often using three particular words. As I have used them with friends, clients, and family, I have really realized the truth of them. Because as much as achieving a goal CAN BE like a kitten; gaze focused, wriggling body, and that pouncing moment where it is captured in its little claws, goals don't always wrap themselves up so neatly.
I've achieved many of my goals. Some are still in progress. But others, attempt after attempt have left me unsuccessful. While I may temporarily sulk, declare it's impossible, and say that I give up and will just forget about it, I know my curiosity will bring me back to chasing the ball of string again, in the hopes that the cosmic kitten tamer, will finally let me catch it and embrace it.
As a side note, we just got two new kittens in the house. :-) Cleo and Kally showed up while I was gone.
What are those three qualities that can serve you if you will consider them? Practice, patience, persistence.
Sometimes we set goals that are easy and sometimes we set goals that stretch us. It's the stretching ones that we gain the most from. We can learn to practice, over and over, with a focused gaze that will help us achieve the thing we are focused on, or we can give up when the easy is over. There may be rare occasions where we realize that "thing" isn't really what we wanted, but if we really want something desperately, it may take practice over and over and over. Olympic athletes aren't made in a day. Healthy bodies aren't recovered in a week. And some goals may take a lifetime. The act of practicing teaches us what works and what doesn't and helps us hone in on the HOW we can achieve our goal.
Patience is a match to practice. As we practice we gain new skills and insights, not just about the goal itself, but often about ourselves and our own character. Adding patience to practice is that wriggling, wiggling part that we wait for the right moment, the inspiration, the right connection before we pounce and bring the task into our grasp. Each goal we set has a particular gestation that we may not know the length. If we give up too soon, we may never know if the seed was about to break through the earth or the tree bloom. It's the patience that allows us to see the planted seeds grow into a bountiful harvest.
Persistence is the part that looks like practice and patience together. It's the capturing of the goal and wrestling it into completion; it's patience and practice in spite of difficulty or opposition. I love the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, where he says:
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do has increased.”When we give up on our goals, dreams, and desires, we lose the potential ability that we might have gained through persistence. I realize not every goal will be seen to completion, and we get to be the ones to decide whether we can or cannot, whether we want to or not. Persistence may be the deciding factor in whether we do or don't. This has been a favorite poem of mine for years.
Will to Win
Setting goals, and changing our mental patterns takes time. Some goals and thoughts are easily changed by learning something new or practicing something a few times. The worthwhile work of thinking and doing, is often much more trying, demanding, and challenging. Practice. Use patience. Persist until you succeed. Changing your habits and thinking is some of the hardest work in the world.If you want a thing bad enough
To go out and fight for it,
Work day and night for it,
Give up your time and your peace and
your sleep for it
If only desire of it
Makes you quite mad enough
Never to tire of it,
Makes you hold all other things tawdry
and cheap for it
If life seems all empty and useless without it
And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,
If gladly you'll sweat for it,
Fret for it, Plan for it,
Lose all your terror of God or man for it,
If you'll simply go after that thing that you want.
With all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity,
Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,
If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt,
Nor sickness nor pain
Of body or brain
Can turn you away from the thing that you want,
If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it,
You'll get it!Berton Braley
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