“Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you in the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round. Remember that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.” -James J. Corbett
James J. Corbett reminds us that champions always fight and persist. This is easily said, tough to do and often misunderstood. We can and must persist without compromising any of our principles in order to achieve our goals. Only when we do this, we can truly be successful.
Persistence comes down to answering one simple question regardless of the challenge that we are facing: “Will I fight or Will I quit?”
It is that simple when it comes down to it. It doesn’t matter if we are in a period of failure or a time of success, we constantly have to answer this simple question when we are confronted with a challenge. We must learn the habit of choosing to fight and persist.
The habit of fighting for what we want is a learned trait. Many times, we have to go against what society and our immediate reaction tells us to do if we want to rise above the crowd. Society trains us to be average because it is comfortable. Greatness is uncomfortable, rare and the result of persisting through every challenge that we encounter. To be elite, we have to stick to the grind when everyone else quits. That is what makes us elite. When everything and everyone tells us to back off, take a break, or walk away, we must make the power to persist the habit that continues to push us forward toward what we want. Creating the habit of persisting is the key to getting us through roadblocks and barriers that derail most people.
Mental toughness gives us the power to persist. Persistence is the quality that allows us to succeed when others fail. Failures and people that live in mediocrity quit right before the dawn of success. Successful people never quit! They get out of the comfort zone and continue the push towards their goals regardless of the circumstances. Champions always fight one more round.
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