“A river cuts a great canyon through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” – Jim Watkins
Persistence is the one quality necessary for achieving a goal. There are other qualities that are important but to overcome the challenges a person will face while working toward a goal, requires persistence. Throughout my life, I have set many goals which I could not have accomplished without persistence. Tonight, I am going to share with you stories about three of those goals and how I achieved them. The first concerns my fear of heights, the second is about overcoming my childhood weight problems, and the third is about how I learned to read and write.
When I was four, my parents noticed something strange. I refused to use elevators and hated being in tall buildings. Over time, I identified these behaviors as a fear of heights. There wasn’t some catalyzing event that caused this fear. I did not fall as a child or witness an accident. Living with this fear was easy up until I was 13 and went to summer camp. Every year each cabin would go on an overnight canoe or hiking trip. During my second year at camp my cabin was selected to go on a 20-mile canoe trip across 3 lakes. We paddled in the first day and made camp on an island close to the north shore of the first lake. Part of the north shore was made up of a 60-foot rock face that dropped straight into the water. The counselors explained that this was a popular cliff jumping spot and that we would be going for a jump before we ate dinner. The group of us, 10 in total, paddled to the side of the cliff and climbed up. Standing on the edge, looking out over the lake, I could feel my heart trying to jump out of my chest. One by one my fellow campers began to jump, until it was just a counselor and me left on top of the cliff. Try as a I might I couldn’t will myself to jump off edge. That night, lying in my tent, was the most embarrassed I had ever felt. After that trip I started seeking out heights--Climbing mountains and jumping from smaller rock faces just to get use to the discomfort. Slowly but surely, I actually began to enjoy the thrill of being up high. Four years later I took some friends back to that very cliff, and we spent the day jumping.
Summer camp was also the first time I had to face the fact I was grossly out of shape. Growing up I did my best to thwart my parents’ attempts to keep me on a healthy diet. I drank 3-4 Pepsi’s a day and kept a box of sour candy hidden under my bed just in case mom withheld dessert. My unhealthy diet and large stomach were never something I thought much about until I went to camp. Camp focused on outdoor activities and most days were spent running around playing sports. The bad eating habits and extra weight made it difficult for me to keep up with the other kids. I would always get put on the B teams or picked near the end of a draft because of my stamina. This bothered me because I wasn’t a bad athlete. If I was open, I would score. The problem was being quick enough to actually get open. When I got home from camp, I decided to get in shape. I replaced the Pepsi with water, told my mom about the secret candy hiding spot, and got a gym membership. Sticking with a workout routine was tough. I used every trick in the book to keep myself on a regimen. I started with easy workouts and increased the difficulty over time. I tracked my progress in a journal and recruited some of my friends to come with me to the gym. Doing this for a year allowed me to return to camp a leaner and meaner athlete. My chubby days were officially over.
Although these first two goals were difficult to accomplish, the third goal I am going to tell you about tonight has been the hardest. In first grade, after taking a quiz where I spelled cat with 6 letters, my teacher suggested that I be tested for a learning disability. Once the test results came back, the school held a meeting with my parents and told them my dyslexia and ADD were so severe that it would be almost impossible for me to learn to read or spell.From that day on my academic experience changed. Instead of working with my classmates during reading and writing classes, I was sent to a different room to work with a special teacher. I was also forced to give up fun classes like art so that I could spend more time practicing these skills. At first, the schedule change and the difficulties I faced depressed me. However, as I moved through the academic system, I decided to stop being sad and focus on overcoming the problem. Reading, writing, and spelling are essential life skills. I realized I needed to master them in order to achieve what I wanted to in life. Halfway through middle school I made learning these skills my focus. I bought books on interesting topics to hone my reading skills and wrote essays just to practice. Keeping with this routine this was not easy. I always ended up using an audio book to assist me while I read, and my essays were choppy and full of mistakes. Over time, I approached reading and writing like I did working out. I set easy goals and once I achieved them, I increased the difficulty of the next goal. Today, after years of practice both inside and outside the classroom, I make it a point to read two books a month and write at least once a week. One day, through persistence, I plan to write a book.
The path to accomplishing a goal is always difficult. It is long, rarely ever straight, and never flat. During my time working to overcome my fear of heights, my problems with weight, and my dyslexia, I learned that the journey to accomplishing a goal has many unexpected obstacles. The only way to overcome them is through persistence. Persistence is what gets you to look out over the edge of high cliff; it’s what gets you up at 5am on a rainy Monday morning to go work out; it’s what keeps you at your kitchen table for an extra 2-3 hours to finish the chapter of a book when your friends are at the beach. Persistence is what is required to get the small wins that lead to the big wins; and persistence, toward the continuous goal of self-improvement, is what brought me here to toast masters. Thank you.