Does vision create perseverance?

This past Friday,  someone whom is sort of my mentor, Ben Richard said something that helped slap my focus back on track:   “If you have vision in your life, you can go through the pain.“

Ben’s discussion on the concept of vision in one’s life is not necessarily the same vision that I am discussing in this blog.  His is more spiritual.

However, to me … having vision or not having vision is often the reason why we battle through pain and achieve or we don’t.

Like everyone, I have had many goals and dreams over the years which I did not-achieve; or worse, when I got close to achieving the end, just near the summit at the most painful part, I stopped climbing because I conned myself into believing that I was close enough.  Each time — I didn’t have strong enough vision.

Then I think about the things I have achieved…and how important my strong vision was to each of them.

A great example – I swam the English channel.

What makes my swim interesting is that I was able to achieve with less than 4 months of focused swim training and no cold water training at all.  All my swims were done in the warm Mediterranean.

I succeeded because I had clear vision of what I wanted to achieve.

More importantly, I wanted to achieve to the point I never ever considered “what if I fail.”  My vision was so clear that it helped me endure the cold and pain.

In business it is exactly the same.

When I worked for my previous company, I didn’t have vision of where it was that I was going or how I was going to use my job to get there.

One day, I woke up and quit a job that paid me nearly half a million dollars a year.  There are other factors involved in my quitting, but the key reason was because I didn’t have vision of where I was going.

(a month or so after I quit, I went back to that company….then 6 months later ended up being pushed out because I had become a super bitch —  but a big part of my failure was because I had no vision)

Vision gives us perseverance.

However, maybe the concept of  “perseverance” is a topic that is so over discussed that people have just become numbed to it?

Now a days…When things become inconveniently, painful or too time consuming our goals become less important.

A simple example – Are you really giving it a 100% to achieve the goals you have set?

Think about it — Do you have a vision with each goal?

If you don’t, you might as well stop (more likely, than not half-halfheartedly) doing  whatever it is that you are doing, and figure out where exactly you want to go.

Even though Ben was focused on the spiritual vision, I think his comment is the secret to having real sincere perseverance which allows for ultimate, to the end achievement.

When we have vision, we don’t even notice the pain we go through along our journey to achieve.