Perseverance: persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. To continue to the end of a difficult or unpleasant situation.

Have you ever started on some journey only to give it up shortly after you started?

Was it too hard? Too inconvenient?

Do you think you have got grit to stick out anything?

Just the other weekend was the Comrades marathon – 90 km running the roads between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. It is known as the worlds toughest race. Known as the world's largest and oldest ultramarathon. The winners complete the course in about 5 ½ hours, the time limit is set to 12 hours.

The camaraderie along the way is legendary and competitors have to cross the finish line on their own feet. Many are helped and dragged over the line. What gives some human beings that stickability to stay the course and others that are unable to do that give up along the way? Some come back next time having trained harder, others do not even get to the starting line, because it takes planning, training, discipline and determination.

What is your make up and where does it come from? Do you get spurned on by negativity or does it make you want to give up?

To run an ultramarathon is a bit like life. You need to have a goal in mind. To achieve that goal, you need a plan of action, which then needs to be set in motion and kept in motion no matter the difficulties you will encounter until the very end, the reaching of your goal.

Any goal worth achieving involves hard work, discipline, sacrifice and “stickability”.

In order to grow, we are challenged and how we deal with these challenges determines how we handle the next hurdles and what we have to do in order to overcome our hardships. When you are having a hard day at work, but your training programme says you have to go out and do a 2-hour run, what makes you stick to your plan? Are you the person who makes excuses and say you will catch it up tomorrow? Or are you the one that will stick to the training programme because you know in the long run this is the preparation you need in order to tackle and achieve your goal?

In order to tackle any goal in life, you need to have an idea, a goal, which normally comes from something you are passionate about. Then you need an action plan. A way to achieve your goal. Then you need to implement your plan and be disciplined to manage it along the way. You possibly need to do a stock take and analyse if you are still on track to achieving your goal. If you are on track, bingo! If not, you need to check if your goal is still the same, or if it has possibly deviated slightly from your original plan. In this case, you might need to adjust your action plan. Stay focused and keep working on your plan. It will be so worth it in the end.

#livelifelovelife #takeaction #beproactive