First Sergeant's Column Published Feb. 12, 2010 By MSgt John Dermody, 45th AES 927th Air Refueling Wing MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Develop your Core Values with: Persistence I know we have all read our core values and we try our hardest to obtain them but, to be quite honest its tuff and it feels like they are easier read than followed. As in life, how do we obtain our goals when life gets tough? We have the will power but we still are unable to achieve our goals. What are we lacking? It is the persistence needed to achieve. Think about this for a moment: (Just as carbon hardens steel---persistence hardens your will power to blast past any obstacles you encounter as you pursue your dreams) To develop the quality of persistence needed to obtain our goals we need to have: clarity of what the goal is that we are trying to achieve and commitment. Without clarity and commitment there is no persistence. All through civilization people that have succeeded in accomplishing their goals have stumbled but kept the persistence to succeed. Here are a few quotes of advice from people that kept the persistence and commitment to achieve their goals in life: The power to shape the future is earned through persistence. No other quality is as essential to success -Calvin Coolidge I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work -Thomas Edison If you want to get somewhere you have to know where you want to go and how to get there. Then never, never, never give up. -Norman Vincent Peale Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning. -Denis Waitley Persistence-determination is the will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, here comes number seventy-one! -Richard M. Devos It's hard to beat a person who never gives up. Babe Ruth Add persistence to your core values and to your life's goal and you'll achieve your destiny John Dermody (I thought up that one, not bad?). All kidding aside, to achieve our goals in the Air Force and in life we need persistence. The persistence to keep going, persistence not to give up when we stumble, falling short of our goal. If we add persistence we can surely achieve our core value goals.