Robert A Schuller starts his popular motivational book The World’s Greatest Comebacks with the words: “It is never too late to take a new direction and to move boldly toward a new destination; it is never too late to square your shoulders and meet the challenges head on; it is never too late to fight back and achieve success.” The world almanac of human achievements is crowded with real-life stories of human feats of successes achieved even on the face of comprehensively non-negotiable adversities. Cul-de-sacs have been opened up.

Wilma Rudolf, a black sickly physically disabled girl went on to win three gold medals in 1960 Rome Olympic defeating all prophesies uttered against her abilities by many experts. People with severe physical disabilities, without oxygen, without eyesights climbed world's tallest mountain Mount Everest. People have turned their destiny and moved on from rags to riches. What made these people achieve such impossible looking feats? It is determination coupled with a few other psychological constancies.

According to American motivator Lanzy Davis ‘determination is a tool we use to help us win in spite of our limitations; to dig ourselves out of a hole; to give us the will to win; to reach our goal; top succeed'. The 30th American President Calvin Coolidge has said: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talents will not, nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not, unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not, the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Winston Churchill has remarked that success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue (determination) that counts. The 20th century American writer George Lorimer had said, “you have to get up every morning with determination if you are going to go to bed every night with satisfaction.” American Psychologist Og Mandino had said, “failure will not overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.”

The American coloured athlete Jesse Owens, whom Hitler hated, and who went on to win four gold medals in the track-and-field events in 1936 Berlin Olympics said, “we all have dreams. But, in order to make dreams come into reality it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort.” On determination Alexander Graham Bell had said, “what is this power I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.”

Determination is a quality of being resolute, and firmness of purpose. It is a fixed purpose or intention. Determination starts with the decision to go for the goal, to make the commitment to attain the goal. Determination is also the continuous driving force to overcome the obstacles on the way to the destination. It focuses the mind on the end result. It strengthens the will to carry on to arrive at the destination. It fuels the fire in the belly. It helps us overcome adversities.

The hopers and the optimists among us have understood that we need to set goals and give meaning to our lives. Even the pessimists want to add meaning to their lives, but they shrug away from taking the responsibility of adding newer dimensions to their lives. Pessimists are bogged down with the perennial fear of failure, the fear of readjustments, plethora of irrational beliefs, inhibitions, low self-worth, low-self-image, low self-esteem, lacks in courage, unaware of their strengths and potentialities, they carry magnified mental images of their limitations, hence lacks in the will and determination.

Let me cite an example of a determined achiever nearer home. A nine-year-old village boy of Assam of a poor family made up his mind to add meaning to his life. He decided to become an army officer when he grows up. He learnt from knowledgeable sources that Sainik Schools train youngsters to become defence officers. He learnt that there is a Sainik School at Goalpara, a place more than 100 kilometres away from his village. He also learnt that he will need Rs 10 to buy the school prospectus. His father was against sending him to the Sainik School. He was against the idea of his son becoming an army officer. The boy wouldn't give up. From that day he started saving money paise by paise. One day next year he cycled 17 kilometres to the nearest bus stop, caught a bus to Goalpara, went all alone to the school, bought a prospectus, and returned home. He got beatings from his father for his secret ventures, and yet those beatings didn’t deter him. It was in 1973. He not only passed the written enrolment examination, passed the mandatory medical tests, he even found his name in the merit list. He got admission into the school of his dream. After eight years of schooling he got into the National Defence Academy (NDA), successfully passed out from there too, and finally became an army officer. His dream of becoming an army officer was realized. He went on to become a Lieutenant Colonel, and then one fine morning took voluntary retirement from defence service as he realized that his ‘differently-able’ son required more attention and tending. He wanted to add meaning to his son's life. That is another goal set, another mission embarked upon. He is Col Sahidul Islam.

If one studies the life of Col Islam one will be fascinated with the dogged determination with which he fought all odds, turned each and every roadblocks into challenges, and then converted those challenges into stepping stones. That is a determination the world should salute. That is the determination we all need to inculcate. “I had a dream. I was a mediocre student. I was aware of my strengths and of my limitations, and I continually worked on them,” he said laying bare his secrets of success.

Hiranya Ranjan Kalita, a senior State Bank of India official, one recent early morning sent me a text message which says, “even the happiest people doesn’t have what they aspire, but they make the most of what comes by their way”. Imagine, when we wake up with such a positive thought in our minds happiness is definitely knocking on our doors. We humans are endued with immense potentialities. We simply need to set for ourselves realistic, achievable goals and pursue them with determination. Goal-oriented people with positive mind-frame, high in hope, are more determined to achieve their goals as they have action plans to follow. Determination makes it more likely that you are going to succeed at a goal.

Determination is the way optimists achieve better outcome than their pessimist counterparts. University of Columbia (Davis) psychologist Emmy Werner has found that setting goals and planning for the future are strong factors in dealing with adversity, and in fact, minimizes adversity itself. Why? How? They are better prepared to address the roadblocks. They identify their strengths and limitations and continuously work to improve upon them.

What prevents us from being determined? Low self-esteem; lack of self-worth; lack of self-respect; fear of failure; self pity; poor perspective; not being proud of ourselves on what we are; our irrational beliefs; negative self talks; and many more. We must overcome self-pity; prepare ourselves for the adjustments; enhance our self-image; set goals after goals for ourselves; shed irrational beliefs; chalk out and implement action plans for each of our goals; differentiate between the unrealistic, foolish goals and the realistic and achievable goals; we must believe in ourselves and in our abilities to produce the desired results; develop healthy psychological muscles to cope up with the various negative life experiences in our journey towards the future; we must accept the fact that we are amenable and fallible; we must accept the ‘challenges’ as part of our life and tell ourselves that it is ‘OK’ if we don’t succeed in each of our endeavours; we must build ‘high frustration tolerance’ in us; we must stop rating ourselves and comparing ourselves with others; give-up our self-defeating habits; give-up perfectionist, self-shaming attitudes; address and find solutions to our emotional disturbances; adopt non-demanding flexible philosophy of life; we must not procrastinate and we must not do tomorrow what we can do today; and above all we must challenge our fantasies and replace them with ‘reality probable’.

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Prodyot Pran Saikia