Determination

As the end of 2010 rolls around taking the time to reflect on the year, your beliefs and values, can perhaps, help the move forward in 2011. It is important that the behaviors we manifest represent the beliefs and values that we have. C4K values determination. Determination is what keeps you going when things are not going well, when the “Easy Button” isn’t working, and especially when you begin to wonder why in the world you thought it was a good idea to begin with. Determination is what a baby exhibits when he/she practices walking, or the college student demonstrates when he/she gets a “B” in the course on Classic Architecture, and it is what helps you get up and out of bed every day and do the work that you do.

It is important that we understand the difference between being stubborn and being determined. Stubborn people will continue to do the same thing even when they are not getting the results that they desire. Determined people continually assess the situation and make the necessary adjustments to keep moving forward and accomplish the results that they desire. Determined people have a clear vision of what is to be accomplished and an openness to the methods (ethical of course) that will get them to the end.

Living in the Central Valley of California, we often used Sacramento as a metaphor for the “end result.” We made it clear to everyone that the goal we wanted to attain—Sacramento—was non-negotiable. The means of getting there—Interstate 5, Highway 99, Amtrack, plane, walking, or any other way that would end in Sacramento, as long as it was appropriate, was encouraged. No two people accomplish the goal in the same way, so embracing the differences in people makes you even more determined to accomplish results.

President Calvin Coolidge remarked, “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Here are some other quotes to remind us of the importance of determination.

• “It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles." Claude M. Bristol

• "The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials." Chinese Proverb

• "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it - but all that had gone before." Jacob Riis

• "If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance." Samuel Johnson