Determination and persistence characters are always being linked to the traits of successful people. A lot of quotes of the famous people always mentioned these two characters or traits. For example Thomas Edison said that genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. If you have read my previous articles, you could see that I too talked a lot about these.

Try asking any successful person and I can assure you that they would say that these two characters are essential in order for you to be successful in achieving your dream. Whether it is to be successful in your business, exams and career or even in your life.

Well, I guess that's how it is. Everybody agrees that to be successful you need to have determination and persistence, of course along with other successful traits.

As everybody agrees to these so how exactly you are going to maintain these characters or traits in you to ensure that you will achieve success.

Know where you are going

The first thing to maintain your determination and persistence is to know where you are going whether it is in business, life, career or relationship. You must set your goal, what you want to achieve and know for what purpose.

For example you want to be a millionaire by a certain date. You must then know why you want to be a millionaire for example to be free so that you can be happy, travel wherever you want and help other people.

Why is this important? Because if you already know deep in your heart that you would not be happy when you become a millionaire, you would not be determined and persistent enough to take action until you achieve your goal.

Make plan in achieving you goal

When you already know where you are going, you also need to know the what, when and who would be able to help you achieve what you want. How to achieve it is also important however at the early stage of your planning you could leave this one out. The reason is that most of the time you would not know how to do it therefore if you keep thinking of the how, it would end up discouraging you to achieve your goal.

Making plan is important, as it will guide you to the right path that you need to go. Although you need to specify the what, when, where and who in your planning, these could be just in general at the early stage of planning. As you go along you will get the idea of the specific what, when, where, who and even how.

Positive affirmation

Positive affirmation is also important to maintain your determination and persistence. You must always say to yourself that you are going to achieve your goal and believe it. There is no point to keep repeating a positive affirmation however you do not believe that you can achieve the goal

You will be like a parrot that is being taught to talk words or sentences.

Whether you are a believer or not, praying would be a good way to keep determination and persistence. Other then making your belief comes true; it would also help to calm you down especially in difficult situations or obstacles.

Support from others

Everybody in this world will need somebody whether that somebody is parents, siblings, spouse, friends, colleagues etc. The bottom line is that everybody needs somebody especially during difficult times.

In your path of pursuing your goals, having somebody to support you, believe in you and cheer you on especially when you encounter with obstacles is essential in keeping your determination and persistence.

Helping others

Have you ever heard a saying that says the best way to cheer yourself up is to try cheer somebody else up?

If you never heard of this then now you have.

The saying is really true as when you help others you are really helping yourself and this will keep your determination and persistence alive.

A simple example is that you want to be a good teacher and someday being promoted in your teaching career. To become a good teacher you spend times with your students, listen to their problems and motivate them whenever possible.

It's true that on the surface you are actually building your career. However as you look much deeper you are really helping your students to become better and successful people where possibly one day help other people in return.

If you look from this point of view, how much determination and persistence you think you want to have.

Please always remember that determination and persistence are two main characters to achieve success whether it is in your business, life or even in a relationship. Whether you want to practise the five suggestions I mentioned above or other ways to keep you determination and persistence alive are up to you.

The main point is to keep these two characters with you along the way and you will definitely achieve success in the end.

Copyright (c) 2009 Khadijah Ibrahim