Embrace Perseverance

When I was 8 or 9, I received an award at school.  The award was the book Swiss Family Robinson and on the inside cover was a note stating I was awarded this book because of Perseverance. Perseverance is a hard gift to accept. Yet, as I am continually learning to embrace this gift, I am also recognizing how perseverance leads to patience, discipline, wisdom and love.

Perseverance allows us to focus on being our best version of ourselves in what is needed in the here and now.    We live in a world where something always needs to be done, where some attention is required, where we can find ways to improve ourselves and contribute to the communities we belong to.  Perseverance is the gift that gives each of us the opportunity to make a difference, to be lifelong learners and continually seeking to improve ourselves and our communities.  

Perseverance doesn’t look at what is wrong at the macro level, rather, perseverance looks at what can be improved or changed at the micro level and then provides the fortitude to step in and make that change.  What challenges are you called to persevere through?  Maybe it is personal growth or gaining more self-discipline. Perseverance recognizes the little movements and breakthroughs.   Maybe it is to build and strengthen relationships with individuals who hold different beliefs. Perseverance allows us to keep on engaging in civil dialogue, respecting differences while finding common ground. 

Whatever our challenges, perseverance is there to move each of us along on a minute by minute; hour by hour; day by day.  Perseverance leads to celebrations of achievements, a new program implemented at work, cleaner neighborhood streets, or earning a degree or certificate of completion. Perseverance doesn’t have the excitement or the thrill of victory; but without perseverance, we would have far fewer things to celebrate.  

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Connecting Thoughts.....

There is value in taking time to reflect and reconnect with what is important; faith, family, friends, work. Today, I find myself reflecting on work.  Whether I contribute to my employer as a manager or an individual contributor, ideally I want to find job and sense of purpose in the work I am asked to do.  Yet, that is not always possible. So in effort to maintain peace, I chose to live by the words of Mother Teresa.

People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.
If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.
For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

Employers can berate, mistreat, misguide their employees just as easily as they can encourage, support and empower them.  In the beginning, all of us, employers and employees say the latter options. How we live that is a daily challenge.  How do we respond when our integrity is challenged? If managers, how do we provide guidance to our workers to help them understand tasks at hand and empower them to complete them competently? How do we hold ourselves accountable when mistakes are made?  If managers, how do we show our associates how to handle mistakes?  How do we collaborate with others? How do we show respect to others?

I welcome your thoughts as to how you encourage, support, empower others in your life – be it co-workers, family members, friends.

To return to my website go to www.intentionaltransitions.net

April Showers bring May ....

When we are faced with the storms that seem to come in our lives, it is hard to find the joy in the heavy downpours like we've had the last few weeks in Northwest Arkansas. The sun hides for days and the world almost seems to be floating in excess mud. A funny thing happens when life's showers come into our lives, that which is unimportant, or simply a covering is often uncovered. Just as the rain cleanses and quenches the soil and deeply soaks until a plant's roots are saturated, sometimes the storms of life wash away that which we have covered our true needs with so succinctly that we no longer feel the cool breezes and the warm sunshine.
As spring tranforms into summer, the showers come. It is a necessary season for growth. The rain showers temporarily transform our situations. It causes us to change or at least alter our routines, it allows us to gain new perspective and appreciation of the sunny days. It helps us to enjoy the lush green grass and helps the flowers bloom as well.
Each season of our life has a purpose. Are you facing a spring, summer, fall or winter in your life? It may be this season has come to prune something that is hindering your growth. It may be to wash away debris and replenish your thirst for life. It may be time to let go of old and make room for new growth to develop. It may be simply a time of new blooming and growth that often follows the dark periods.

Perspective to Ponder:

What season am I facing in my personal life? My professional life? My family life? What can I do to tend my life's garden?

To return to my website go to www.intentionaltransitions.net