When you were a child did your parents ever pick you up
after a fall, brush you down and tell you, ‘you’ll be alright, off you go’?
Mine did, but what they perhaps didn’t realise they were doing was teaching me
to be tenacious, to be strong and to know that what feels like a failure,
really isn’t that bad.
Of course there were times when I needed a plaster, an ice
pack or once or twice, stitches! Did that stop me running? No. Did that stop me
carrying in the milk bottles? Maybe trying to carry them all at once, but it
didn’t stop me. Because I wanted to do those things. I wanted to feel like I
was contributing, like I was achieving.
Tenacity
Having the quality of tenaciousness makes it easy to brush
yourself down and go on your way. But what if you don’t naturally possess
tenacity? Can you learn it?
Well, from an early age it can be instilled in you from your
parents, teachers and other influential adults and older peers. You learn that
crying about it doesn’t get other people to do stuff for you, if you want that
thing, hold onto your dream and go and get it.
“There are times in life when people
must know when not to let go. Balloons are designed to teach small children
this.” - Terry
Pratchett
In adulthood you’re expected to have a certain level of self-efficacy,
to know how to approach a task and control your own motivation and positivity.
If you aren’t a natural, you can learn it – you can learn by repetition,
practice, listening.
Repeat, improve, grow
Practice makes perfect. We all know this to be true. So if
you’re not confident, keep practicing until you are. In the real world you will
not always succeed, but you will learn from those times and you will improve
your methods - You will learn that carrying one or two milk bottles reduces the
risk of you dropping them and falling in the spilled milk! If tenacity isn’t
natural, wanting to avoid failure is. Repeat your methods, over and over again
until you have it down and you’ll find tenacity grows as a by-product of
avoiding failure.
Listen to yourself and be mindful
Listening to yourself is not a slushy, airy-fairy theory,
no. Recognising and committing to memory, being conscious and committing to
understand those changes you made in your methods – that’s teaching yourself
tenacity. Be mindful of the moment a mistake is made because if you are
un-focussed and doing your best to forget your mistakes. you will end up repeating
them, you won’t be aware of where the changes are that can be made to improve.
Think, where did I go wrong? How can I improve? Is now the right time to ask
for help? Listening to yourself is teaching yourself tenacity.
Tenacious me – an example
When I started working with Push Start Marketing, I had
never been a manager before and nor was it my goal to become one, but it was a
necessary step to take in supporting my friend in running her own business and
in developing my own skills within that business.
I started part-time, the odd couple of hours here and there,
then it got serious… Lucy asked me what I wanted from her and from the next
five years and I said, “I’d like a bigger chair and PAYE”. The next morning,
there was my big chair and the rest is history…
But, I fell down. I didn’t know how to network and speak to
a room full of business people. Then Lucy offered me real employment, with a
contract and everything, just like I’d asked for! At that moment I questioned
if I missed self-employment and walking dogs and cleaning on the side. And
actually I didn’t, I knew that if I wanted to work for myself, I had to get
serious and go and get it, even if that meant public speaking.
I was an adult and couldn’t rely on my mum to pick me up and
tell me she’d do it for me because it was my dream, not hers. So I did. I
thought long and hard about my barriers, I practiced mindfulness in situations
that seemed unfamiliar and I was willing to make changes to my methods and
practice them until I had it down. I’m still listening, I’m still learning and
I’m still growing, but my tenacity is stronger now than it was last year and my
self-efficacy is powerful – Not only CAN I do this, but I am DOING THIS!
The moral of this story? Maybe, ‘be careful what you wish
for, Lucy’s listening!’ Or maybe it’s, ‘if you want it, go and get it’
“Many of life's failures are people who
did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas A.
Edison
