Be Persistent

What challenges test your goal-achieving resolve? Maybe, on the business side, it’s slow growth or a lost contract. Or, on the personal side, it might be childcare, sandwich caregiving, health issues and family responsibilities. Whether business or personal, you face challenges at every turn. Without persistence, any woman might too easily relinquish her own dreams.

It’s through persistence – that dogged determination from within – that keeps your ambition from going underground. Here are three suggestions that help you stick with it and persevere through the tough times:

• Refuse to make excuses for failure. If life gets in the way and you have to go slower, do it, but don’t give up;
• Find a coach or mentor who can help you navigate around and through the difficulties;
• Understand that you are at your best – and are the best role model for your children – when you are doing the work that ignites your passion and satisfies your soul.

Ask for what you want

Most sales managers will tell you that the first mistake a new sales person makes is that they forget to ask for the order. They might do a great presentation but walk away empty-handed because they didn’t ask the potential customer to buy.

Not asking is a common mistake women make, yet it’s one we don’t learn until adulthood. Think about it: how many times a day does your daughter or son ask you for something? They ask all the time, multiple times, and even change their approach but they don’t take ‘no’ for an answer. That’s how most of them eventually get a “yes” for what they want.

What do you want? If it’s a referral, ask a satisfied client. What better entrée to a new client could you get than an endorsement from someone who is already happy with your product or service? If you want more help at home, ask each person to do one job. Explain how their help is part of the two-way “caring” street between you and them and, in return for what you do for them, ask them to do a cleaning job or laundry, make dinner, etc. If you get a ‘no’ keep asking. It works for your kids, and it’ll work for you too!

To Thine Own Self Be True

As the first woman to head the National Institutes of Health, controversial cardiologist Bernadine Healy’s perspective encourages women to find out who they are and live according to their values. She pointedly insists, “If your goal in life is to have everybody like you, you will never do anything. You will never stand up for anything, make any commitment, or figure out what you believe in because you will be afraid it will be offensive to everybody else. You want people to like you for the right reasons, not for some veneer you put on.”

Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues, echoes those same sentiments. “You have to make a decision in your life. Do you want to be ‘good’ or do you want to have a life? ‘Good’ implies being approved of and towing the line. Living inside a box….you never live your life. You live their life.”

So if you sometimes get frustrated that there still isn’t parity in the workplace, victory up! Take a few lessons from the women who came before us. Model their passion, persistence, asking, personal responsibility and self-worth.

Here’s a plan: Take one characteristic each month and really focus on how it can help you and how you can do it better. And then, as the old adage says, “Practice. Practice. Practice.”

© 2009 Annmarie Kelly. All rights reserved.

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