Today the 2016 Rio Olympics come to an end. During the past two weeks I found myself in awe of these athletes who have competed and succeeded at the highest level. Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt and many others demonstrated that they are the very best in their sport.
Each one of these great athletes have devoted countless hours in training, practice, and competitions to get to where they are today. One can not be successful in a competition today if they have not put in the effort necessary to tone their muscles, work on strength, endurance and fine tune the skills necessary to win at this high level of competition.
To illustrate the point of having to put in effort to be successful I offer this quote from President Howard W Hunter from a devotional address he have at BYU in 1987:
"The achievement of true greatness is a long-term process. It may involve occasional setbacks. The end result may not always be clearly visible, but it seems that it always requires regular, consistent, small, and sometimes ordinary and mundane steps over a long period of time”.
Each of us, no matter our circumstances in life, can enjoy the fruits of success. Success in your occupation, marriage, family, even relationships with friends rests upon us as an individual. I find I have two major stumbling blocks to succeeding. First is believing in myself. The second is perseverance. Having the patience to keep going when success does not come right away or I experience a measure of failure.
On the subject of perseverance Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said this in his October 1987 general conference address:
“Perseverance is a positive, active characteristic, it is not idly, passively waiting and hoping for some good thing to happen. It gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying”.
This really hits the nail on the head for me. We can not be truly successful without putting in effort on our part. Certainly giving up and no longer trying does not lead to success. On too many occasions in my life I have thrown up my hands in frustration and said "I quit".
I came across this quote that hit home to me:
“Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts. The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success? A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed a hopeless failure may turn into a glorious success. … There is no defeat except within, no really insurmountable barrier save one’s own inherent weakness of purpose” (author unknown,Second Encyclopedia, ed. Jacob M. Brand, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1957, p. 152).How many times have I given up when success would have been mine with one or two more steps? A lack of determination, I believe, is the weakness that kept me from moving forward.
I plan to take some inspiration from this Olympic season. I hope you will to. My inspiration is to increase my determination to keep moving forward and not lose patience when the road seems rocky and impassable. To draw some strength from this short quote from a talk that President Thomas S Monson gave in the 1987 general conference:
"One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final.”
Submitted by: James Tanner
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