In one of his seminars, motivational speaker Les Brown talks about the three things that we should remember as we are putting in the work towards our goals.
1.) Patience
When we want something of value or to be better in any kind of aspect of our lives, we need to come to the realization that it is going to take time.
It’s easy to get discouraged with the expectation of fast results.
We all inherently want to “beat the system” because finding loopholes make things easy.
But in the system of life, working on ourselves doesn’t have a shortcut or quick fix. We’ve got to be consistent at the small things.
Eric Thomas says,
“You’re trying to do big things
And you haven’t mastered the little stuff.Do your homework.
Go to school.
Clean your room.
Wash your car…
Be faithful over few.Are you hearing what I’m telling you?
And if you’re faithful over the few,
One day you’re going to look up,
And you’re going to be on a whole different level.”
What stops us from progress? What stops us from doing the small?
Distractions.
There are those quick fixes out there, the small rush of dopamine.
Whatever it is, we all have these distractions or escapes.
Let’s get good at fending off the distractions because in this we’ll be able to exert ourselves in getting done the small things.
Doing the small puts us on a path of progression.
There are benefits in avoiding stagnation.
Progress has a dynamic nature that makes us come alive and positive.
Good things in life don’t come quick, and that’s good for us because the process and progression of events is what changes us for the better.
2.) Persistence
We’ve got to be patient, but we must not fall into that lull of being okay with inaction or we’ll start getting lazy on ourselves.
If we think we are being patient, but nothing is getting done, is it really patience?
To give the attribute of patience more value, let’s talk about what patience is not.
It’s not procrastination or mindless busy work. It’s being persistent.
When we grind, something happens. We are more likely to put in work the next day, and the next day, and the next.
We are developing our willpower.
If we’ve been putting off a goal, but start doing it for three days in a row, we can be rest assured that the 4th day will be easier than the 1st.
That’s how it goes.
Even when we’ve got a good flow going on, we can’t let our guard down.
It just takes one day of not doing our stuff, and we can easily fall back into that procrastination trap with all the mental chatter telling us why we don’t need to do our stuff.
3.) Positivity
This suggestion that Les Brown gives is a big one, and that is to be positive.
Even in as we are persevering towards a goals, we’ll fail.
And that’s OK.
Negativity is going to ransack the chambers of our mind.
We’ve got to be okay with that too.
When negative thoughts come through, let’s not give them power by having a strong emotional response to them, because if we allow this, it gives negativity power over us.
Instead, we can accept that the thoughts are passing through our minds and that these thoughts are negative and not wanted. We can then be forgiving of ourselves and of our thoughts.
We can live mindfully in the present so that negative thoughts don’t have unnecessary power over us.
With all this being said, it’s good to remember that there’s no problem with being on the offensive as well.
How can we do this?
By focusing on the positive stuff.
We’ve got to prepare and shield up the defense of our minds with positive media, books, music, and people.
Conclusion
It’s all about mindset.
But even as we are feeling like we’ve harnessed positivity pretty well, if we don’t harness our willpower and take action, our goals will not come to fruition.
Life’s no picnic, but as our mind is in the right place we’ll conquer in patience, persistence, and positivity.
I love this article!
I believe that implementing these three traits really is a balancing act. If we are too patient, we won’t be persistent; if we aren’t patient, it’s hard to be positive. This message is so simple yet so clear to me, and I am going to focus all my energy on these three P’s!
That’s a cool point you make – I didn’t think of it like that before. thanks for the comment
I really needed your post at the moment. I’m striving to improve myself and sometimes it can be pretty tough as you have to face a lot of your shortcomings along the way.
But your post cleared things up for me on the characters that I can develop to cope make the journey more enjoyable.
Les Brown is also one of my admirations I listen to his speech on how it’s “not over until you win”, highly inspirational.
Thanks for sharing!
Cheers,
Anh
Thanks man, I’m glad it helped. And I know what speech you’re talking about, i saw it on youtube awhile ago – super inspiring
Wonderful and motivational article well done! The moment I saw “Les Brown” I thought to myself that this article will be worth reading ’till the end. And I was right 🙂
You reminded me some great mindset tricks. we should keep our eyes on the prize, on the success, and on our vision. Time vampires are everywhere, we need to keep focusing on our vision.
Thanks for that perspective – it’s true what you said about time vampires – that distractions are everywhere, and if we’re not careful we’ll be way behind in regard to where we want to be
I just saved this and also sent it to some people I know. I try to be a motivational person but sometimes my words don’t work. Sometimes it’s better to hear from someone who puts things into words better so thank you!
I actually really like your whole website. I’m going to look around more later after I get some work done!
Thanks for the support!
This is what i needed right now. Honestly, I tend to rush things to see the result of my work in a short period of time. Your post just gave me a lot realizations about the state i’m currently in. No matter how long it has to take for me to see the result of what I have started, I have to be patient, persistent and positive.
Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome Lynn! keep it up
Very inspiring article :). I like what you say about building up willpower. I felt like I was doing this at a point in my life when I was going for long runs. Each time I pushed myself and kept going even though I wanted to stop, I imagined that I was building willpower that would help me in other areas of my life. Like being able to be disciplined and study when I didn’t want to. Not sure if that’s how it works but I seemed to do the trick for me!
I have similar experiences too – I notice that when I exert myself in things like physical exercise, I’m more likely to be able to practice willpower in other aspects of life too
I love these 3 P’s. They are so simple and yet also so powerful. The first thing I thought of when reading through this post is how all of these relate to my workout regimen. But they really apply to pretty much everything. They are definitely things I should be reminding myself of, especially the patience and persistence parts. I tend to jump into things full force and then lose interest really quickly. I think these are worthy of a “note on the bathroom mirror” sticky!
Hi there
Your article, really lifted up my spirits and gave me that boost that I was seeking for a long time now.
After reading your words, I realize that I flawed with the second P. Though I was patient when working with my new project, I was putting off some aspects rather than persisting with them through.This is something, that I think could make some difference.
I thank you for the inspiration, and bookmarked your site.Its what I believe can help so many people out there.
Going to share this on my social media.
Thanks
Roopesh
Good to here from you again Roopesh!
A yes – the three P’s. I think I struggle with all of these a lot! All of them at different times. I can be incredibly inpatient – but then some how find the ability within myself at other times and surprise myself how patient I can be! I think one of my strengths is persistence, I am very stubborn which definitely helps. So, I can literally go full out towards a goal until I get it and I won’t let up! I can, on the other hand, be incredibly negative at times and it’s something I’ve worked on a lot in recent years. Thanks for the post, it’s made me reflect!
Perfect article on the 3 p’s of progress, very good tips on reaching your goals. All three together are very powerful, if you can stay motivated you can accomplish any of your goals.
Do you have any good tips on staying motivated, that seems to be the hardest thing for people when working towards goals they lose their motivation when results are not happening quick enough.
I would say to always remember your why for what it is your doing, as well as watching a lot of positive, motivational stuff on youtube
You have highlighted so many attributes of success which one should have to reach to the top. While reading your article I was matching out yours mentioned qualities in me and being honest, I’m doing all that makes a person a successful not just from a financial viewpoint but also from daily life activities.