Self-Help Perseverance

December 1, 2013 by Martin Pelletier 4 Comments

Want some tips on how to persevere in your self-help endeavours? I do! It can be tough sometimes when you’ve invested yourself in an exercise or a program for some time but you don’t see all the results that you would like yet. Actually, I’m starting to believe that this is the foundation of self-help perseverance. I believe that most programs out there are good and bring some value to your personal growth. The problem is jumping from one program to the other, not trying them fully or persistently, hoping that the program itself will do the transformational work… without having to do the work ourselves!!

That might even be one of the reasons why people (and that includes me!) need self-help programs in the first place! Not wanting to change!! Of course, this unwillingness is buried at the subconscious level. Consciously, we are definitely aware that there is something to change, something that makes us unhappy and could be better. That’s what drives us to pick a program or a self-help book and try it. But deep down inside, in the subconscious mind, there is something else fighting. Something doesn’t want us to change. Something is absolutely comfortable in the current state of things. I argue that it is that voice that’s convincing you to drop the program and try put all your hopes in the next one. Doing this never ending consumption of self-help programs satisfies both the conscious and subconscious minds. The first is happy to be trying to improve the situation and to look for a better life, the latter is happy that things remain the same and preserves the permanence of things. This is actually the role of the subconscious mind: to align the external reality with emotional stability. The subconscious mind is therefore at peace when no attempt to change things is made.

Internalizing the effects of a self-help program requires perseverance. After all, this is how we were “programmed” in the first place! Through repetition! Think about how you learned your name, your first language, think about how we teach babies! Repetition! Therefore, that what you need to succeed! Take Bob Proctor’s example! He read one book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, over and over, his entire life! So when desperation comes, keep going! That’s the only way! Try to surround yourself with a mastermind group, or at least one person that will support you EVERY DAY in your endeavours!

If you want an exercise to practice your perseverance, read the Chapter 9 of Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich every day for a month! I did it and it helps a great deal!

Good luck and keep going! It’s totally worth it!

Martin