A recent post to the Jack’s Winning Words blog used this quote – “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.” (Ray Kroc)
I was recently asked, during the introduction to a talk that I was to give, what the secret to my success is. My answer was “patience and perseverance”. I suppose that this answer equates to persistence. It is all too easy in life just to give up on things; to get discouraged
and admit defeat. Having been in sales and marketing positions most of my adult life, I know a thing or two about rejection or someone saying “no”. There are tons of books on sales and how to deal with objections, and the one constant in all of them is the need to be persistent.
Those who let the first rejection or failure stop them will never be successful. It is important to stop and analyze what just happened to lead to that rejection and to learn from it and make changes for the next attempt. Nothing is more of a waste of time than doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. That is not persistence; that is the definition of insanity.
As a Realtor, I have had many opportunities to demonstrate persistence. I had one listing for three years before it sold. I had to be persistent in both my efforts to sell it and my efforts to get the owner to reduce the price to a reasonable level. I’ve also had buyer clients for multiple years. Often I would get buyers who had expectations about what they wanted that did not match their ability to pay. In those cases being persistent in both the search and in my efforts to educate them on what they could and should expect to buy eventually paid off in a sale. I’ve also had many cases where the clients were not as persistent or as patient as I and they usually ended up leaving and going with some other Realtor. Many of those impatient clients later told me that they ended up doing what I was advising them to do while they were with me.
We must all persist and press on in life. The alternative is a one-way trip down a dead-end street. Persistence is not about continuing to try to solve the unsolvable problem; it 
is about rethinking the problem and moving around it or putting it behind you. Go under, over or around it; but, don’t let that seemingly unsolvable problem stop you. Most of the time the problem exists mainly in our heads, due to our inability to accept something that has happened (a failure , a death the end to a relationship) and move on. Dwelling on something is not persistence, it is resistance. That resistance results in stress; stress born out of anger and futility. Allowing that stress in your life results in many health issues, both physical and mental.
So, resolve today to persist in life without wasting your time resisting against that, which 
has already happened. Learn from yesterday and then let it go. Press on! Take a goo look at the picture and that eh advice that is embedded therein.
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