Whatever your aptitudes and ambitions, there is no substitute for the twin attributes of patience and persistence. Few of us get far without them in any area of life. History is littered with examples of people who’ve given up when with just a little more effort they could have succeeded. There are also countless examples of courageous and far-sighted individuals who persisted against the odds. One was Charles Darrow. When he sent his idea for a new game to Parker Brother, they turned it down.

They cited 52 reasons why the game would never sell, including the ‘fact’ that nobody would be interested in a game about property trading.

But Darrow was persistent and eventually won them over. His game, Monopoly, became the best selling game of the twentieth century. The Japanese have a saying, ‘Fall down seven times, stand up eight.’ Have you the strength and determination to get up each time you fall? Don’t be discouraged; look upon every problem as a challenge to be faced and overcome. And whatever happens, stay on purpose. If it’s right for you, and you apply the right principles, everything will work out.

Step Eight: Summing Up

All the preceding seven steps will come to nothing if you give up at the first sign of difficulty or disappointment. Naturally some of your smaller, short-term goals may be achieved quickly and fairly easily, but the bigger goals, the long-term ones that make the biggest difference, will inevitably take time and require more effort.

This applies especially to the mental conditioning and character forming techniques in Steps two and three. Remember, these are the main ‘causes’ that shape your life. Deep-seated patterns are unlikely to change overnight, but they do change (and sometimes quicker than you imagine) if you persist.

Lasting change takes time, and when the going gets tough remember how much better you feel when you achieve something worthwhile by sticking at it. So press on. Nothing can take the place of patience and persistence.