Never Give Up!
Here’s a motivational affirmation.
Is it? Or is it not?
When you’re stress-free, you find it the most beautiful slogan and you think it is easy to dedicate yourself to it.
But when you’re gripped by the pressure of doubt for what you’re doing, since the results don’t come out, when you have high hopes and they only come true 5 or 10% or maybe even less, even though you feel that you’ve put in a huge effort, this expression seems very far and very false.
After I published something about myself, in which I wrote the story of progress through perseverance, I received a lot of likes and a lot of congratulations.
Thank you, everyone!
Does that mean I’ve never given up on a project I started?
Unfortunately, I’m afraid I did it.
Because I’ve lacked some knowledge of how to connect to personal resources. However, from each, I learned a lot of things.
Today I’m talking about fighting from within while you persevere.
Fight from within
It’s very easy to tell affirmations like the ones in the title, but the truth is that after you face a lot of no, there’s a bitter battle going on inside you.
Part of you tells you not to give up, to move on to keep doing what you started and you’re going to succeed.
Another part of you, it’s overwhelmed by failure. You feel like your stomach is tightening, your heart is like a lump and tied to what you’re doing. You feel a huge pressure that presses you from the inside out as if it’s ready to explode.
I’ve felt that many times in what I’ve done. After receiving many refusals as an advertiser, without having read anything about perseverance, I managed to achieve some very good results.
But during that activity, it worked not only perseverance but also motivation. I was motivated to move on, to continue to approach companies for advertising contracts, because I had no choice.
If I didn’t make it, I’d soon starve to death.
That reminds me of a story I heard on a course.
Motivation, perseverance and their role
After the Romans crossed the English Sea and landed to conquer the territory of England, their ruler gave an order. When the soldiers looked back, they realized that all the ships they had come with were burning. From that moment on, they had nothing to go back to their country. They had a choice, to die in battle or to defeat and conquer England.
Many fell (gave up their lives), but others continued to fight and put even more effort into it because they had no choice. Either they died or they won.
This is a model of motivation. Something similar motivated me. Even though I remained a teacher, that summer I acted as if I had my ships burned, because I had no other solution.
But it wasn’t always like that.
Should I act less or more?
Since the summer of 2010, I started to show the marketing plan for a network marketing business. I hadn’t burned my ships at that time.
I was no longer motivated by hunger, but the desire to make money to buy an apartment.
In courses and seminars, on CDs, we were told that you can get results if you show at the plan at least 8 times a month.
And it’s true. You get results, but quite poor.
Showing eight plans a month it’s very excruciating. Most responses are negative. Emotional consumption is huge. When you go twice a week to show the business model, you start thinking about the process too much.
You get too much hope that doesn’t come true and you start over-analyzing things. This process of thought and analysis paralyzes you with fear and doubt.
You don’t have the guts to get your hands on the phone, to call. You think this is always a bad time. Maybe the person is eating, maybe he’s asleep, maybe he doesn’t want to answer, maybe he doesn’t like you, maybe…
Your hands shake when you touch your phone. You try to make a plan in your mind about what you want to say, but when you hear your phone being answered, fear has blocked your brain and you don’t know what to say, not even who you are and why you called.
Then, talk to the upline.
I was lucky. I had an upline that had patience with me and explained many things to me. And after I talked to her, I felt better.
Slowly the results, which, however weak, gave me confidence that it could do it and helped me move on.
At a seminar, I found out that you have even better results if you show the plan 15 times.
At first, I thought if it was so hard for me to show the plan eight times, 15 times it would be impossible. But the upline explained to me that it was actually the opposite.
The more you do it, the more you keep your brain busy, the less you think and you stop worrying so much. You no longer focus on the refusal of the man in front of you, but on the fact that you have a target, and you must achieve it.
Even if one turned you down, you know you have one more chance with the next, then the next marketing plan you show, and so on.
And I did so.
Indeed, fear existed, but not as intensely as at 8 plans. Perseverance has yielded better results.
I remember in a month I got almost 12–13 rejections one after the other. I was about to give up, but the upline told me it was nothing, that’s how it is in life, in business and just to move on. I did that and when I got to the next person, she made me a 200-point order. I was super-excited. That order counterbalanced all the refusals I received.
At the seminars, I heard leaders saying they showed 2–3 even 5 marketing plans a day. That means between 60–150 plans a month.
No wonder they got such quick results.
The brain didn’t have time to think, to get scared, to create theories, to precipitous images. He obeyed orders he received from the conscious mind.
It didn’t matter that one or the other said no. All that mattered was that after he left there, he would show another plan and then another one and so on.
At the end of the month, when he looked at things, he noticed the results. And these have accumulated over time.
The fewer plans I made, the more I consumed myself. The more I motivated myself and worked more, the more my fears melted away.
Barrier of terror
What I’m saying is that the difference between giving up and perseverance is the way you manage the inner pressure of rejections.
That reminds me of another story.
A grandfather talked to his nephew and told him that inside of us, each of us had two wolves. One is evil, unjust, creepy, full of prejudice, and the other is kind, gentle, optimistic, confident, and full of love. The two wolves are constantly in battle.
“And who wins?” asked the nephew.
“The one you feed more”, Grandpa replied.
When you face many rejections, you feel the two wolves inside you struggling and each comes up with arguments, which are stronger.
Some say this moment is the barrier of terror.
The good wolf wants to get through, to succeed in what he set out to do. It’s his mission to get the job done.
The evil wolf creates pain given by numerous refusals, by the fears that dominate it, by concerns.
He’s starting to reproach you for the time you’ve wasted, the money you hoped to earn, and it didn’t happen. It tells you horror stories about people who have lost everything, that’s just a big lie, etc.
He finds objections to everything you want to do. The market is already over-crowded, people don’t want the product you’re showing, they haven’t turned down the product, they’ve turned you down, they didn’t like you, because you’re destined to stay poor, because those who succeed know a secret that they don’t tell you, etc.
Who wins? Depends on who’s stronger for you. Fear or motivation.
When you let fear take over your whole being, you don’t have the courage to talk to someone else. You’re afraid he’ll make laugh of you, of your weaknesses, or judge you and criticize you even worse.
If fear is greater than motivation, it is very easy to give up, to go back to your life before that action.
If you are motivated, then you continue and persevere and eventually get results and overcome fear.
And last but not least, if you’re motivated and the bad wolf gives you trouble, you start talking to your mentor. This one, who has more experience than you, will know how to say a word of encouragement to get you out of that state.
You alone can’t overcome this barrier of terror, but with help from mentors, you certainly succeed.
And sometimes help can be one word, one expression, one look. He can tell you: I know you can, or I trust you or help you with an unlocking technique and after that, you feel relieved.
Other times, after talking to your mentor and he is giving you a solution, things become simple and easy to navigate again and you realize that fear has played tricks on you and was about to fool you.
And then, it’s very easy for you to say, NEVER GIVE UP!
Best regards,
Blogger at Fanautodidact
Author of Patronel and Soriela, a fantasy and self-improvement for children book, Eliberează-te de rănile trecutului și redescoperă fericirea! — a book in Romanian language for self-help and healing the trauma from the past, Mica Stea Portocalie — a fantasy novel with emotional education for YA and adults.
