The most important single quality of success is self-discipline. Self-discipline is having the ability within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.

Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed. It is not what you learn but whether or not you can dedicate and discipline yourself to pay the price, over and over, until you finally reach your goal. Self-discipline is required in each stage of your journey.

You need self-discipline to set your goals in the first place. You need self-discipline to make plans for their accomplishment. You need self-discipline to continually revise and upgrade your plans with new information. You need self-discipline to plan each day, set priorities on the use of your time, and concentrate on the most important task that you could be doing at any time.136

You need self-discipline to invest in yourself every day, to develop personally and professionally, to learn what you need to learn so that you can achieve the goals that are possible for you. You need self-discipline to delay gratification, to save and invest your money so that you can achieve financial independence in the course of your working lifetime. You need self-discipline to keep your thoughts on your goals and dreams and keep them off your doubts and fears. You need self-discipline to respond positively and constructively in the face of setbacks and problems rather than becoming angry or depressed.

Persistence Is Self-Discipline in Action

Perhaps the greatest display of self-discipline is persisting when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Persistence is the great measure of individual human character. Your persistence is, in fact, the true measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

Each time that you persist in the face of adversity and disappointment, you build the habit of persistence. You build pride, power, and self-esteem into your character and your personality. You become stronger and more resolute. By persisting, you become more self-disciplined. You develop within yourself the iron quality of success, the one quality that will carry you forward and over any obstacle that life can throw in your path.137

The legends of the great accomplishments of men and women throughout history are stories of the triumph of persistence. All great men and women have had to endure tremendous trials and tribulations before reaching the heights of success and achievement. The strength of character manifested in their unshakable resolve made them great.

Persistence Is the Hallmark of Success

Successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs seem to be possessed of indomitable willpower and unshakable persistence. Everyone in any field who succeeds greatly has to overcome tremendous adversity, often for many years, before he or she finally wins.

In 1890, America was in the grip of a terrible depression. Businesses failed all over the country, and people were laid off in the thousands. A businessman living in the Midwest lost his hotel in the midst of this depression and found himself with little money and lots of time on his hands. He decided to write a book to motivate and inspire others to persist and carry on in spite of the difficulties facing the nation.

His name was Orison Swett Marden. He took a room above a livery stable, and for an entire year he worked night and day writing a book by hand, which he entitled Pushing to the Front. This book told the stories of countless men and women who had persisted over and over again until they eventually succeeded.138

At last, the book was done. Early in the evening, he finished the final page and, being both tired and hungry, went down the street to a small café for dinner. While he sat and ate, the livery stable caught fire. By the time he returned, his entire manuscript, more than 5,500 pages, had been destroyed by the flames.

Never Give Up

At first, he was overwhelmed with feelings of disappointment and discouragement. But then he realized that his entire book had been built around the importance of persisting in the face of adversity. Drawing on his inner resources, he went back to work and spent another year rewriting the book from the beginning. He refused to give up.

When the book was completed, he offered it to several publishers, but in the middle of the depression, which was then in its third year, no one was interested in a motivational book. He accepted the rejection calmly and decided to wait until the timing was better. He moved to Chicago and took another job.

One day, he mentioned his book to a friend who happened to know a publisher. The publisher read the manuscript and became very excited. He felt that this book was exactly what people should be reading in the middle of a depression—or at any other time. Pushing to the Front was subsequently published and became a runaway bestseller. It became a source of inspiration and encouragement for thousands of people.139

Many top businesspeople and politicians said that Pushing to the Front was the book that brought America into the twentieth century. It had an enormous influence on the minds of decision makers throughout the country and became the greatest single classic in the history of personal development books to that time. It was read and digested by people such as Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and J. P. Morgan.

Get Going and Keep Going

Orison Swett Marden wrote in his book, “There are two essential requirements for success. The first is ‘go-at-it-iveness,’ and the second is ‘stick-to-it-iveness.’” Referring to the quality of persistence, he wrote, “There is no failure for the man who realizes his power, who never knows when he is beaten; there is no failure for the determined endeavor, the unconquerable will. There is no failure for the man who gets up every time he falls, who rebounds like a rubber ball, who persists when everyone else gives up, who pushes on when everyone else turns back.”140

Persistence Is Your Greatest Asset

Perhaps your greatest asset is simply your ability to stay at a task longer than anyone else. B. C. Forbes, who founded Forbes magazine and built it into a major publication during the darkest days of the Depression, wrote, “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.”

John D. Rockefeller, at one time the richest self-made man in the world, wrote, “I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”

Conrad Hilton, who started with a dream and a small hotel in Lubbock, Texas, and went on to build one of the most successful hotel corporations in the world, said, “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful men keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”

Disappointment Is Inevitable

Intelligent people, acting in their own best interests, do everything possible to minimize the number of problems and difficulties that they might experience in their day-to-day activities. Yet in spite of our best efforts, disappointments and adversity are normal and natural, unavoidable parts of life. It has been said that the only things that are inevitable are death and taxes. But experience proves that disappointment is also inevitable.141

No matter how well you organize yourself and your activities, you will experience countless disappointments, setbacks, and obstacles over the course of your life. And the higher and more challenging the goals that you set for yourself, the more disappointments and difficulties you will experience.

This is the paradox: you cannot evolve and grow and reach your full potential except by facing adversity, dealing with it effectively, and learning from it. Most of the great lessons of life will come to you as the result of setbacks and temporary defeats, which you have done your utmost to avoid. Adversity therefore comes unbidden, unexpected, and unwanted, in spite of your best efforts. And yet without adversity, you cannot grow into the kind of person who is capable of achieving the great goals that are possible for you.

Adversity Is What Tests Us

Throughout history, great thinkers have reflected on this paradox and have concluded that adversity is the test that you must pass on the path to accomplishing anything worthwhile. Herodotus, the Greek philosopher, said, “Adversity has the effect of drawing out strength and qualities of a man that would have lain dormant in its absence.” The very best qualities of strength, courage, character, and persistence are brought out in you when you face your greatest challenges and when you respond to them positively and constructively.142

Everyone faces difficulties every step of the way. The difference between high achievers and low achievers is simply that the high achievers utilize adversity to become stronger, while the low achievers allow difficulties and adversity to overwhelm them and leave them discouraged and dejected.

Success Is Always One Step Beyond Failure

Your greatest successes almost invariably come one step beyond your greatest failures, when everything inside you says to quit. Men and women throughout history have been amazed to find that their great breakthroughs came about as a result of persisting in the face of disappointment and all evidence to the contrary. This final act of persistence, which is often called the “persistence test,” seems to precede great achievements of all kinds.

H. Ross Perot, who started EDP Industries with $1,000 and built it into a fortune of almost $3 billion, is one of the most successful self-made entrepreneurs in American history. He said, “Most people give up just when they’re about to achieve success. They quit on the one-yard line. They give up at the last minute of the game, one foot away from a winning touchdown.”143

The power to hold on in spite of everything, to endure—this is the winner’s quality. Persistence is the ability to face defeat again and again without giving up— to push on in the face of great difficulty. There is a poem by an anonymous author that I think everyone should read and memorize and recite to himself or herself when tempted to quit or to stop trying. This poem is called “Don’t Quit.”