The BIGG Successs Show
How to Know if You’re Persistent or Stubborn
Two questions to ask if things aren't going your way. Find a written summary of today's show on our site at BIGGSUCCESS.COM.
Welcome to the Big Success Show. Today we'll discuss how to know if you're persistent or stubborn. The Big Success Show with George and Mary Lynn. So now Mary Lynn, are you asking me if you're persistent or stubborn? Because I have an opinion on that. I have an opinion on you too. So I guess we better keep our opinions to ourselves. I refuse to do that. I'm somewhat persistent. Oh, is that what you think? Well actually Michael Bailey over at the Mobasoft site, Michael is a technological genius. He is. And he wrote about this very subject the other day. That's right. We do have a link to that post on our site today. Basically he's asking is there a difference between persistence and perseverance? And I think there is because if things are working the way that you want them to, you have to be persistent with what's making things work in order to persevere. Now if things aren't working the way you want them to, then you have to change your course to persevere. So you can't be persistent in the wrong thing. Well and I guess Mary Lynn, I think it's a matter of semantics. And as a matter of fact, perseverance is a synonym of persistence. So I think that really you're making a fine line between the two and I would almost say I can respect that difference. But I'm going to be stubborn here and say that they are one and the same. You said it. And I agree. I mean if you look it up in Webster's or whatever they are, synonyms. But I honestly equate persistence with action and perseverance with a destination. Well there you go being stubborn again. And by the way I was being persistent before. Well what you're saying Mary Lynn is actually consistent with Seth Golden's definition only he uses the word persistence instead of perseverance. But he says persistence isn't using the same tactics over and over. That's just annoying. Persistence is having the same goal over and over. That's an interesting definition. Here's another example. Okay when I was in radio I was very persistent about doing whatever I could to grow as a broadcaster. Some might call it stubborn. But I got to a point with the job that I had that I knew I couldn't persevere. I mean I had hit the ceiling with as far as that job could take me. Alright so that's why I decided to walk away from that and do big success so that I could still be persistent at growing and learning more things. Plus I can persevere. My terms of persevering. Well Mary Lynn I think that's a great example. And as a matter of fact I think with Michael's you know he's pulling a definition out of Webster's and one of the definitions of persistence is sort of that stubbornness that continue to go on. And the thing is that's the question you've got to ask yourself if you keep running into a wall are you stubborn or is that persistence and Michael refers to this as blind persistence. And coming up how to know if you're being persistent or stubborn. Today we're talking about the difference between persistence, perseverance and stubbornness. And we said and there's two questions to ask yourself to help determine whether you're persistent or stubborn. Keep it in mind that you always want your end goal in your head as you're asking these questions. Alright so the first question to ask yourself am I doing the wrong thing. If you know that you're doing the wrong thing to persist in that direction is just plain stubborn. Perhaps even insane insanity right. But the thing is it's not that easy right I mean you know you don't always know it's the wrong thing. Well if you've invested a lot of time blood, sweat and tears into a particular project or a direction or a business and it's not working you don't want to give up so you just keep trying. But there's a question that you should ask yourself before you make that conclusion. That's our second question and that is am I doing the right thing in the wrong way. Because maybe you are doing the right thing to reach your ultimate goal but there's something that you're doing that's not the right way to do it. There's things you're doing that aren't advancing you towards that goal. So in that case you do want to persist but change the methods. So like I said if things aren't working the way you want them to you can't persist because that's stubborn. I guess Mary Lynn you're right it pains me to say that it does not okay I think you need to persist in listening to me more all right I think that would be helpful well I guess we've proved your conclusion congratulations you can get a written summary of today's show on our site at Big Success that's big with 2g success.com we also have links to the other two sites that we mentioned today next time we'll share some great tips on status reports for projects and until then here's to your big success. [Music] (gentle music)