 Perseverance is key to meeting our goals. But how do we get perseverance in the first place? Welcome back and congratulations on taking one more step because becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. We've all been told over and over again that we need to have perseverance if we're going to achieve our goals. Today I've got five tips to develop your perseverance so that you can stick with it when things get tough. And stay tuned to the end, I'm going to give you a link to where you can download our free leadership development plan workbook and that'll help you set your goals for your career for the next two, five, and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them. We hear all through our lives that to meet our goals we've got to have perseverance and stick to it. And that's great because it's true but not all of us are coming from a place where perseverance is an inborn inherent trait. And I was doing a workshop yesterday with a group of people and I was reminded, we were talking about traits and I was reminded that traits can be developed, traits can be built and they're a lot harder to develop in ourselves than a skill. And I wanted to talk a little today about developing that perseverance. There are times in my life I didn't always have the perseverance I had today and there were a lot of times in life that I had to up my game and my perseverance. First in high school then in college when academically work started getting harder than what I was used to. And then in the Air Force when we started tackling real problems that looked like they were really impossible we had to stick with it to find a solution. And finally with starting a business I really have to stick with it and still do with marketing and sales and trying to build leads for my company or else I won't be able to meet my goals. So today I've got five tips and these tips come from my own personal experience trying to develop perseverance and I hope that they'll help you too with your perseverance if that's something you're struggling with. So tip number one is to break things into small steps if you're trying to develop your perseverance. We've probably all heard that if you're trying to get to the gym my friend Jordan Harbinger talks about this a lot. If you're trying to get to the gym if you're trying to work out more and develop your fitness first thing is lay out your clothes the night before so as soon as you get up all you've got to do is throw those clothes on put your running shoes by the door put those shoes on that's the next little step and then get in the car and get to the gym or walk out the front door do all these little steps in a row because these little steps are easy to do you make it easy on yourself to do one more little step every single time and pretty soon by the time you've got enough little steps done you're already at the gym and you're standing on the track or you're standing on whatever machine it is you're going to work on and you may as well do it because you're there. So break things into little steps and you'll find that instead of trying to tackle one big step and persevere through one big step doing little steps makes life a lot easier and starts to develop that perseverance muscle in you. Tip number two is to just go a little farther every day and this is another fitness-based example but when I'm running if I haven't been running for a while or for some reason I'm trying to increase the distance that I'm running I just try to do a little more every day I typically run on the track indoors because it gets hot here in Las Vegas in the summer it's not great to run outside here so I typically run on the track and and what I try to do is every day if I'm trying to increase my distance whether I'm starting from kind of the beginning again or if I'm just trying to increase my distance for more stamina or more performance I just do one more lap every day I don't I don't get really ambitious go I'm going to do another mile today or another two miles today I just say if I'm if I did 15 laps yesterday I'm going to be 16 laps today and again that helps build that perseverance muscle so doing those small steps and then increasing your distance or whatever it is your goal is by just a little bit every day that'll help build that perseverance muscle too and pretty soon you'll be able to power through even longer distances or bigger goals it's important to give yourself credit for taking the steps even if you don't fully succeed at what you are trying to do that's tip number three again this is another fitness-based example because this is kind of near and dear to my heart but there are a lot of days I get to the gym running to get tired I get sore I don't feel well and I don't I don't complete my workout I don't get everything done or maybe I don't do all those laps on the track that I said I was going to do that happened to me just the other day but I give myself the credit for going and trying and say tomorrow I'm going to do a little better I'm going to increase that distance again or I'm going to get back to what my original goal was but get that give yourself the credit for taking the steps recognize that you didn't meet the goal and you take steps to meet the goal but give yourself credit for taking the steps get that little victory and again that will help build that perseverance muscle building these traits is like building a muscle do that give yourself that little victory and then get back to it the next day tip number four just like with any goal is to keep track of what works and what doesn't so this isn't so much about tracking your progress and are you meeting your sales goals or whatever it is goals you have how far you're running whatever whatever goal it is you have this is more about are the steps you're taking moving you in the right direction so if you've got a business and you're doing cold calls and you're not getting much performance from those cold calls you're not getting a lot of leads maybe it's time to try something new but keep track of how many cold calls you're making how many are resulting in converting and going on to a sale or even just advancing that relationship a little bit further so keep track of what works and what doesn't again this isn't about did I meet my sales numbers this is about how effective are the techniques I'm using because what you don't want to do is keep pursuing a technique that isn't working for you so keep an open mind about other techniques that might be possible and keep track of which techniques are working for you and advancing you towards your goals and which ones are really holding you back because sticking with the ones that are holding you back is just perseverance in the wrong direction the last tip I have for you today is to start early if you're going to do something where you feel like you're going to need a lot of perseverance or put a lot of energy into something because if you get into that gun for time you're going to feel like you have to get it done and you're going to feel like you have to turn it in at lower quality or maybe not as good as you wanted to do or hoped it would be so anytime you're doing something especially if you're starting something new you've never done it before and it's going to require a new skills or learn or learning something that may take some time to learn don't do it at the last minute give yourself plenty of time to learn persevere stick with it and work with the other tips you know make those small steps every day go a little further every day but leave yourself the time to keep to let those steps work because if you feel like you're under the gun you're going to have to turn it in and you're going to you're going to take a hit to your perseverance muscle instead of developing it there are your five tips for building that perseverance muscle like I said at the top of the video traits like this definitely can be learned and developed but it's really hard it's much harder than developing a hard skill or any kind of ability or thing that you can learn and kind of sit down and work with every day but it does require perseverance to develop those things too so give these five tips a try take some time develop those small steps do those small steps every day go a little further every day and definitely give yourself plenty of time so you can stick with it put it aside and get back to it try these five tips and I think you'll find that you'll have a much stronger perseverance muscle and it'll be much easier to stick with things as they get top if you found this helpful please like comment and share it with a friend or co-worker click on that link below that'll take you to where you can download our free leadership development plan workbook and that'll help you set your goals for the next two five and ten years and build a plan of action to achieve them and now you've got the perseverance to stick with that plan for those years if you have any business or leadership questions leave us a comment below we'd love to hear from you and answer it or email us at info at evilgeniusleadership.com evilgeniusleadership.com is also where you can find out about our coaching and training and workshop programs so if you're looking for a little more training whether that's in a one-on-one setting or in a group setting for yourself your friends your co-workers your business hit us up at evilgeniusleadership.com info at evilgeniusleadership.com and we'll get you set up with a free consultation and find out how we can help you meet your leadership goals thanks for watching today i really appreciate it and remember the future is out there lead the way