I thought that this wonderful quote by Thomas Edison was a great way to start my post on perseverance.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they came to success when they gave up.

This quote really speaks to me as it seems that in our culture of instant gratification, many people do not want to wait for something that takes time. If they have tried and failed at something once, they often tend to lose heart and give up altogether, despite being a whisker away from success.

I have seen this myself; a few of my fellow students at university had failed an assignment and rather than retake it, they decided to give up completely. This was right near the end of the course! Not only did they not graduate, but they were demoted as well!

I might have mentioned before that the school motto at my primary was something like, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.” This always stuck in my mind, and if nothing else, I am certainly determined! I did not like school, was not allowed to go to college afterwards (my mum was mad I didn’t try at school), but always regretted not getting many qualifications. It might have taken me many years, but eventually I did it!

I also don’t get people who have given up smoking for something like five years then go back to it again! It is hard enough giving up in the first place, to go back on it after such a long time is such a shame. I was determined to give up,and have done it at the second attempt, Fingers crossed I won’t go back there again!

In life, we are constantly challenged to learn new things, or unlearn old things! With a little determination and a hell of a lot of perseverance, it is possible to achieve success, After all you might be a lot closer than you think!

This was inspired by  Ronovan’s BeWoW  posts