9/365- Persistence

What Kind of Qualities is a Person's Most Important Characteristic ?

 I used to care about being smart and outgoing. I've been struggling for years to get accept that  I'm not the ones of the brightest . What I value more now is a person's Resilience and his Persistence . 

The word "Yi" in my name is the from my parents's expectation to me in perseverance. Meanwhile, My father keep the habit of running for more than 40 years which I adore him so much for his perseverance and endurance. 

Why Persist? 

In Chinese saying, If you don't accumulate a small step, you can't get to thousands of miles ,不积跬步，无以至千里. 

To make a dream true, the first step is ideation , which is the engine of the change. The second step is execution. But take only countable steps is not enough. We should continuously pump oil to the engine, keep your initial aspirations and persevering persistence whenever encounter difficulties , until change happens.

I reviewed my stories. Basically succeed in the insistence, failed  in the lack of insistence.  I loved and good at painting when I was a child, but didn't keep on . Now, basically, this talent is fade away which is quite pity. In high school, I loved winter running.But in the race, because I can't hold on in fiece competition and I didn't get any prize which I feel ashamed for a while.

Take this trip to Ireland and the UK, for example, I had this idea quite far away, which was one of my biggest dreams in 2019. But by January it was still an idea, and I felt panic, and I was afraid of myself, and this thing was so yellow. Then I started planning for it, lobbying at all levels, detailing the itinerary, linking people I hadn't met, the communicating, negotiating, and getting an Irish visa. 

In this way, I won the magical 2-week business trip. And in a short period of time, through their own perseverance, to complete a new opportunity to cooperate with Belgium. So how do dreams come into reality? Is the need to rely on non-achievement of the goal of unremitting persistence. 

Another example is 2017, when I kept running for nearly a year, after a month or two of persistence, the whole body began to change. However, later because of pregnancy, no longer adhere to the body and the state of a great rebound. This is a typical contrast between persistence and non-persistence. 

So how long we should keep? This is an interesting topic. 

I am a fan and practitioner of Agile. The meaning of agile is to produce a continuous value. I was impressed by the concept of DOD (Definition of Done) in Agile, which defines what is called "completion." Completion must have external value. In the case of a product or service, the value is that the customer is willing to pay for it or exchange it. Every step of the process is valuable, and it is difficult to produce final results without each step. If you have to define a point where you can celebrate (but not stop), I think it's the stage of the (DONE). 

When I was at the Bank of Ireland, I led the team to do a lot of process improvement. the Kanban was full of item, but mostly WIP. At the time, one bank leader challenged me  instead of working hard to create more new improvements, I should focus on remove dependancies and move WIP (Work In progress) to done first. In this way, the banks could really feel the value. "  This example has so far benefited me a lot to have a better understanding of value-driven persistence. 

But we can look at things from a diverse perspective. From coaching's point of view, each moment of persistence belongs to the present. If every moment is focused, why care if you need to stick to it? 

How to Help You Stick To 

People who rely on enthusiasm and impulse to stick to a things basically many times turn around after setting up a flag . As persistence itself is anti-human, energy-consuming . I think the real persistence comes from a firm belief in yourself and a sense of who you are, knowing what you want, where you want to go,  so that you can be effortless and happy. 

You should also have a profound understanding of the natural rules from ideas, concepts to producing results, and preparing yourself psychologically for difficulties. When you have any bad emotions in the process of persistence, be able to accept it, Let it go. Then continue to focus on what you insist on. 

Persistence is one of the keywords of my 2019 plan,.

I want to keep be myself, to put down the shackles of my mind. 

I want to keep traveling, reading and writing, communicating and listening, trying and experiencing new things, and connecting with new people and circles. 

I want to keep exercising every day, even 20 squats a day, running three times a week, and dancing twice a week. 

I want to keep reading with my children daily and let them fall in love with books, and fall in love with the way of experiencing the world.

I want to keep on quickly iterating myself and building a new version through constant cognitive and behavior changes.

I want to keep to be a Future Designer, create and design my own future and influence the future of others through new thinking, links, and courage.