Patience Is A Virtue, Success is Earned

     Patience is definitely a quality that I tend to struggle with. Unfortunately, it is also something that is becoming more and more necessary for me to use on a daily basis due to some changing life situations. My difficulties with keeping my patience have led to some unpleasant situations...situations that could have been avoided with the thoughtful application of aforementioned virtue.

     My father recently sat me down and had a talk with me. One of the points that he stressed was that patience, for him, is a learned behavior; but because of his patience and persistent hard work over the last few decades, this past year he made "ten times more money that 90% of the people in the United States." My father has become a hugely successful businessman because of his "persistent execution of the fundamental basics of success."

     So what are the fundamental basics of success?

- Patience

- Diligence

- Persistence

- Hard work

- Never quit (unless quitting achieves a better outcome than staying the course)

- Be honest in everything you do

- Stay positive

- Keep your goals in mind

     After my conversation with my father I sort of re-evaluated my life and thought about how I measured up to these basics of success. From a scale of 1-10, 1 being awful and 10 being amazing, this is how I rated myself:

- Patience? 5-6

- Diligence? 4

- Persistence? 4

- Hard work? 5-7

- Never quit? 6

- Be honest? 6-8

- Stay positive? Well for the past month or so, my rating for myself on this one would be a 3 :/

- Keep my goals in mind? honestly I tend to be more of an in-the-moment person, so I often lose focus of my long-term goals. I'd rate myself a 4 or 5 overall :/

     So obviously I could be doing better. Of course I want to be successful, but I struggle with these fundamental things that apparently lay the foundation to great success in the long run. 

     But what can I do to get better at these things? Well i'm not entirely sure tbh. Practice? Find better motivation? Don't be a sloth? Idk, I don't really have all the answers. 

     But I do know one thing; Patience is a virtue and success is earned. Keeping that in mind and putting in the effort needed to get ahead in life, and to be happier in my personal life, is something that i'll be sure to work harder at from now on. I know I won't be entirely successful at first, but everyone has setbacks and trial and error is part of the learning process. And who knows where i'll be in a few years? I sure don't, despite my hopes and plans for the future. But we'll see. Success is calling, and I think i'll answer the phone this time :P