Week 17:Endurance

iMprovement Diaries

Endurance is something that is easily forgettable in times it is required most. If you put it to practice, the benefits will be greater than imagined. In the aftermath, you would have learnt so many lesson that no one can teach.

My personal experience recently with regards to endurance is leadership. I have written about leadership before, and I hope I don’t repeat myself in this one.

What I have learnt about endurance as a leader:

- People don’t have to listen to what you say.

However, if you persist and stay true to you values and vision, they will all start following.

- Show up before everyone and leave after everyone.

As a leader you must be putting in more hours than anyone on the team. This means you need to invest more of your own time for that sake of the vision without seeing any improvement and keep going after.

- You are not the smartest in the room.

You need to understand that you to keep going and find new and better ways of learning regardless of your position. Leaders don’t have to know everything but you need to know a lot.

- They will not let you in.

To work well with you team, you need to understand each other on a deeper level and at first your team will not be open to you. The biggest mistake you can make in that situation is to distance yourself and reflect how they approach you. The opportunity to connect with them only comes once and when you miss it, there will be no chemistry between you and your team.

Here's what you need to do:

· Be open with your team

· Create common ground

· Show support consistently

· Be the same person everyday (with daily improvements)

Being effective as a leader means you need to be connected to your team. Which means you need to consistent in your growth as a leader and keep going regardless of the backlash. We are not born leaders, but we grow in some through endurance.

What I have learnt about endurance in my self-improvement journey:

- There’s a reason why there a lot of physically fit people around.

Working is never easy. The work concept of getting into shape is based on the amount of pain you experience in the gym. The worst part is that the most benefits are at the point when you feel like you can’t goal any further.

Training till failure.

- Faith starts when you can’t see the road ahead.

Your trust in God is put to the test when you have nothing. When nothing is going your way. When you have no one on your side. When it feels like God doesn’t exist. That is the time when God is closest, and he waits for you to show that bit of faith that will open all the doors. This type of faith is unattainable if you do not endure in your journey of getting closer to God.

- Learning something new.

Learning new skills is never easy but it is doable. The more difficult the skill the more benefits there are e.g. learning a new language, programming/coding, chess etc. These things are never easy nor are they fun to learn but we can all imagine how impressive it would be when you find yourself in a situation where your skills could be put to use. They could even get you your ideal job/career.

Endurance determines who will be successful at anything. Majority of the time that most successful people didn’t create something magical, they simply lasted longer than their competition. They endured more pain.

Through the:

· Long nights

· Lonely phase

· Criticism

· Failures

How much more can you endure?