I think this is a word that I don't hear often enough. It's a word that we should be living AND using daily in both our personal and professional lives.
Successful people, even if they don't use the word often, definitely live out the meaning of this word. Tenacity can be defined as being persistent and not giving up.
This quality is essential if we're to succeed in our personal lives. It has to do with our beliefs and our values and the things that are most important to us. Are we willing to stand by these aspects of us no matter what?
Another point of reflection is, do what we think or tell ourselves we believe in and value actually reflect our actions? For example, if we say we value our health but eat fast food every day or smoke a pack of cigarettes each day or drink a 12-pack of beer each day can we actually make the claim that we value our health? These are obvious examples. Examples of inconsistencies in our own lives, between what we say we believe and what we actually do, may be much more subtle than this.
I think sometimes we're good at tricking ourselves into saying that we believe or value something but our actions are really not reflective of our words. It's like the saying goes, 'we've got to practice what we preach'.
Depending on the circumstances we may be able to get by, by not practicing what we preach. However, in business, in order to be successful you better make sure that what you stand for, what you believe, what you value, and so forth is clear to your clients and that you actually practice and live out these beliefs and values. If you don't you'll quickly find your brand or company will fail because client's will recognize they can't trust you because you're based on false pretenses.
As individuals, if we aren't practicing what we preach, a lot of the time, we will NOT like it if this aspect of ourselves is challenged. It's almost as if we live in this fantasy world of our thoughts around our values and beliefs where we can think of them but never actually take action to reflect what they are.
Keys For Success:
1. Stop talking and start taking action! Practice what you preach! Don't be a hypocrite.
2. Be willing to take a reflective and non-judgmental look at you and/or your business. What do you believe? What do you value? Do your actions reflect these? How can you rectify the situation? If what you think you or your business represent is what you want, then how are you going to make that a reality through action?
As always, what is our goal? What are we attempting to do in life and in business?
Strive to Optimize!