Indomitable perseverance and intention

Themes of perseverence, not allowing ourselves to be overcome, encouraging intention and thinking that supports our positive growth, run through so many writings and teachings of experts on success philosophy and achievement dynamics.

For example, Bob Proctor, in his article Notes on The Secret DVD, comments, “Because we have the freedom to think anything we want, we can originate thoughts or we can pick thoughts just out of the ether, and we can internalise those thoughts; we can bring them together and build beautiful ideas, or we can build terrible ideas…

“The ideas we build are going to determine the vibration we’re in and the vibration we are in is going to dictate the energy that we attract to us. Now ask yourself what you really want…”

The new movie “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith as Chris Gardner, and his son Jaden Smith as Gardner’s son Christopher [photo] covers a year of his life in the ’80s that he and Christopher spent sleeping in flophouses, parks, train stations and even a public restroom.

“It’s the story of my life, but it’s not about me,” Gardner said in an interview. “It’s about every father who had to be both the father and the mother. It’s about every mother who had to be the mother and father,” he said. “It’s about anybody who ever dreamed big and had someone tell them, ‘No, you can’t do it.’ You can.

“My first ambition in life was to be Miles Davis. I studied trumpet for 10 years. I didn’t want to be a jazz artist. I wanted to be Miles Davis. My Mom sat me down and said, you can’t be Miles Davis. He already has that job. You have to be Chris. That freaked me out. I mean, who is Chris? All I knew is I wanted to be world-class at something.” [Sun-Times suntimes.com December 15, 2006]

He went on to become a Dean Witter broker intern, and founded his own multimillion-dollar brokerage.

Another aspect of his success – and that of many other people – is hope, in the sense of enduring conviction and assurance.

In her article Are You Settling?, career counselor and workshop leader Valerie Young quotes playwright, poet, political dissident, and former president of the Czech Republic, Vaclac Havel:

“Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Young asks, “How can you develop an orientation of the heart that allows you to believe that no matter what happens, regardless of how things turn out — even if you are disappointed — that things have meaning? If you are serious in your intention to change course, you must do so with a hopeful spirit.”

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Related pages:

Valerie Young site: ChangingCourse
The Secret DVD information page
articles : achievement
Personal Development & Achievement Resources

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