Perseverance: Try, Try Again Often Pays Off But at Times You Can Carry It Too Far

We try. We try really hard. We grew up hearing our parents utter the cliché: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again…

Ok. We try. And it sounds good until we try so hard we become a nuisance.  

Imagine this scenario. Case #1: You’ve tried to reach an editor, manager or colleague to hear back that they’ve read and edited your story or report. After reaching out several times, doing so has the opposite effect and they get annoyed or even tell you you’re acting unprofessionally! Or they may not tell you but think it. 

Here’s another, Case #2: You’ve tried to reach a friend or family member countless times, but they don’t get back to you as soon as you like. After a day or more, you start imagining the worst…maybe they’ve eaten too much and have spent the past two days in the bathroom or even worse, fallen off a bridge. When you still don’t hear from them or hear reports on the news or in the newspaper, you become extra annoyed. Then it escalates into anger. 

After more days and efforts, your blood pressure starts inching up like a bad rash. You tell a friend who gets upset along with you and starts to annoy you by asking often if you’ve heard back from the person. They tell someone else and before long you have an entire village of people worrying and waiting with everyone writing “what happened” scenarios in their heads. You may start to berate yourself for causing such a kerfuffle. Later, you learn the person was fine and just away from their computer and phone or preoccupied with other more pressing matters. 

Truth be told, perseverance is a balancing act. How do you use an admirable trait to get that book published, find the last Brio train your 3-year-old grandson has desperately wanted, or snare a reservation at a place that’s known to book up fast and months ahead, without driving every other person insane, as well as yourself.

Since we’re guilty of over-perseverance (OP) as we have dubbed it, we have come up with a 1, 2, 3 approach to get through it. It takes practice not to revert to old ways:

1.    Shift focus from the one person or one need and go about your daily and other tasks and work. When you don’t hear back in a reasonable period of time—that means 48 hours rather than a few hours, try again after three days. Keep it all in perspective. Most people are not sitting at their computers or on their phones non-stop as we do for our work. Here, patience is a virtue… as someone claimed.
2.    Second try. Don’t rub it in the person’s face that you’re surprised they haven’t returned your call, text or email. Don’t ask if anything’s wrong and don’t get angry or sound the least bit annoyed. Consider a different approach. If you called, now email, or if you emailed, now text, though remember many find texting intrusive and annoying with the “ping, ping, ping”. Preface each with: Just in case you didn’t get my VM, text or email….Keep the tone friendly and say that you’ll wait to hear back. 
3.    Third try, which is the charm, as some claim. Wait a week, then call and leave a nice voice message. Again, don’t make assumptions and certainly don’t get angry. You needn’t apologize for your persistence, just say something like this:  “I hope you’re well and that we may connect in the near future.” 

You tried and tried again and again. Now sit back and wait. If it’s a business situation, you may want to consider going above the head of the person you’ve tried to reach explaining with proof that you’ve tried multiple times to get back credit for your changed airline tickets and a refund or it’s been more than two months since you were reimbursed for a job you completed. If it’s a friend, maybe reach out to a mutual acquaintance; same goes for a family member. If it’s a business colleague you work with, trust us, they’ll be in touch when they have time and need you for changes or something else. And if a restaurant and you don’t hear back, try a new place or cook at home and don’t swear off ever eating there. Just choose a less busy time of year or time.

We promise our 1-2-3 OP approach will help you relax and enjoy everyday life more!