Napoleon Hill and Persistence

Napoleon Hill and Persistence

I am in the midst of a delightful task. I’m editing a book by a man who is sharing his lifelong adventure in achieving his goals. I love the stories and the history behind them. When he has it published I’ll let you know about it. The topic of his book is covered in the rest of this short post

If you’re not familiar with Napoleon Hill then I’m going to assume you’re just beginning to learn how to expand and get what it is you want in life. If you aren’t new, but haven’t heard of him, then you’re in for a treat. His most famous book is Think and Grow Rich. It’s a distillation of his much larger book The Law of Success in 16 Lessons.

We live in a society in which the technology of today has imprinted upon us that everything we want must come immediately. Food comes out of fast food restaurants or microwaves at home, you can text someone for an immediate answer, you can find almost any answer by using your search engine.

This “instant gratification” has spilled over into our educational system and work environment. Kids think they should be able to get the grades they want without doing the work needed. Young people coming out of college believe they should be hired for a job that requires 10 years experience. Almost everyone seems to forgotten that it takes time to learn new skills and achieve the goals you want.

Today I want to focus on one of Napoleon Hill’s quotes. “Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”

When you learn any new skill it takes time. You are engaging your brain and your body. They have to learn to work together. Each time you practice there are electrical impulses which form tracings, or roadway, in your brain. It’s important to be patient while waiting for everything to come together so that you can learn your skill. Once you learn, and keep practicing, you will get better and better. If you want to be the best at what you do, count on spending about 10 years to become a master in your chosen area.

You don’t have to be number one in order to accomplish anything. If you’re learning how to set up a webpage all you need are step-by-step directions, the patience to follow them and the persistence to keep doing what you’re doing.  If you keep following this process, what would have taken you 100 hours to accomplish you could get down to 10 depending upon the project.

Not everyone wants to be the top in their field. They simply want to be good. There is certainly nothing wrong with being “just” good at what you do. If you have a passion for something, be it a hobby or an area of work, you will naturally be drawn into learning more and practicing more. Because you’ll be having such a great time following your passion, one day you’ll become aware of how good you are. In fact, you’ll be better than most.

there are number of things I enjoy doing but I’m not particularly good at, at least when compared to other people. Video games is one of these areas. I was playing a Harry Potter Lego video game with my seven-year-old great-nephew. Let’s just say that he beat the socks off of me, as they would say. my favorite “pass the time” game I play on the computer is Bejeweled 3. I’m sure most of my little nieces and nephews could beat me at that also, that my purpose and playing it is not to be excellent at it. It’s to relax.

I’m a writer in a healing facilitator by profession. These are very important to me. I want to master these areas. That means I practice and practice and practice, with some timeout for more education, and then practice some more. I don’t want to be just good in these areas. I want to be excellent.

What is the most important thing to you in your life? Your answer tells you what it is you need to focus on. This is where you keep working, keep learning, keep practicing and never give up. Don’t worry about how much time it takes. Time will pass. You can either accomplish something with it or look back and wonder why you didn’t do anything of value to you.