Value resilience, persistence
LIVING through a year is a journey where you encounter various experiences. Facing a new year calls for next-level thinking.
It is important to appreciate the forces of resilience and persistence as you pursue your drive to greatness. Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4:1213: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
This is the legendary spirit of a warrior. You keep moving despite what you face. Some days will be easy, and you keep moving. Other days will be tough, and you still keep moving.
Resilience and persistence work hand in hand.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back after enduring a shock, crisis or downturn. Persistence is the ability to steadfastly pursue an objective despite opposition, delays, denials or other disadvantages.
Greatness has two hands — resilience and persistence. You need both.
When you are knocked down, you need to get up, bounce back and recover.
It is not enough to just recover but you must have the fortitude to endure, continue and not give up. Persistence requires resilience. Facing a new year is a period during which you reflect and validate your actions and stand.
After you have been knocked down, it is important to know if you should persist when you get up.
Persistence should be coupled with learning and reflection.
The Dakota American Indians came up with the critical next-level thinking that is required to evaluate whether to persist or change course.
The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and seek new alternatives. This wisdom needs to be embraced. In many businesses and organisations, much is talked about resilience and persistence. However, because of vested interests, resilience and persistence are misplaced.
Many factors are taken into consideration. Strategies to build adaptive capacity, increase resilience and ensure flexibility are often tried with dead horses.
Popular strategic and tactical moves include the following:
1. Using and deploying a stronger whip.
2. Changing riders and succession planning.
3. Threatening the horse with disciplinary measures or termination.
4. Appointing a committee or consultants to study the horse.
5. Arrange learning visits to other sites to see how they ride dead horses.
6. Taking affirmative action to ensure equity by lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
7. Reclassifying the dead horse as “living-impaired”.
8. Hiring international contractors to ride the dead horse.
9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase horsepower and speed.
10. Providing additional funding and other enabling resources to increase the dead horse’s performance.
11. Doing productivity studies and surveys to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse’s performance.
12. Declaring that the dead horse carries a lower overhead and, therefore, contributes more to the bottom line than other horses.
13. Rewriting and retraining on the expected performance requirements for all horses.
14. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position so that it is relieved of the frontline performance burden.
After all has been done, the best strategy, when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, is neither resilience nor persistence. It is simply to dismount.
When adversity rears its head, look at it in the face and keep thinking, and not just reacting.
Remember that greatness occurs daily but never in a day. Keep strengthening your resilience-persistence muscles. Keep learning and growing. Keep working on your anticipatory skills and strengthening your adaptive capacity.
It is in good times that you prepare for lean seasons. It is while you are riding high that you prepare for the valley moments. It is while the sun is shining that you make hay. It is when you are not thirsty that you dig wells.
Much has been talked about setting goals. You need to do so.
Think of a level higher than the goal you are setting. This is what helps you think bigger.
Shoot for the moon if you want to land on the highest mountain. Shoot for Mars if you want to be a leader of moon missions. Shoot for the highest mountain if your destination is the anthill behind your village. To build your capacity for resilience and persistence, you need to set “anti-goals”. These are the things you do not want to happen on your journey to greatness.
Anti-goals help you face reality. They also help you avoid the proverbial Pyrrhic victory. This is a victory that takes such a terrible toll on the victor that it might as well have been a defeat.
You do not want to rise to greatness, then lose your toes and sanity in the process.
Make resilience worth the effort. Make persistence worth the pain. Make the year ahead one big ladder to greatness.
Committed to your greatness.
◆ Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author and accomplished workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: mkamwendo@gmail.com