#MondayMotivation: The Power of Persistence

Who couldn’t use a little #MondayMotivation? Especially on a Monday on which some of us are enjoying a holiday (Columbus Day in the United States, Thanksgiving in Canada), but the rest of us are back at work. Well, today, let’s take a look at the power of persistence. Call it what you will—gumption, stick-to-it-iveness, perseverance—the ability to stay with a task in order to reach a goal is an important quality to have or develop if you’re on a weight loss program.

But sometimes, you may reach a point where you’re doing everything right and the weight just isn’t coming off. Or worse, you’ve gained a few pounds. It can be frustrating, but it’s all a normal part of the process.

Still, that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. You’ve probably seen some rapid gains, especially early on in the process, and you want it to keep coming off. So what are you supposed to do?

We like to look around us in some unlikely spots for signs of the power of persistence. Some of them are in nature, some of them are in our fellow humans, some of them are in our own backyards:

• We know a guy in our neighborhood who throws his loose change in a shoebox every night when he comes home. After seven years of saving his pennies, nickels and dimes—he spends the quarters—he had saved more than $150.
• We went to Alaska a couple of years ago and saw big chunks of ice falling off the front of a glacier. Our guide told us that ice had fallen as snow more than 200 years ago and had traveled to the sea over the centuries.
• On that same trip, we saw spruce trees that were almost 1,000 years old and as tall as a 20-story building. The same guide held up a sapling and told us that given the right conditions, it could be just as tall.

How did all this happen? One step at a time.

Stick with it. You can do this.