We tend to use words like persistence, perseverance and constancy when we talk about reaching a goal or achieving an objective.
Let’s say that persistence is doing the same thing over and over until it works: keeping at our attempts until we succeed. Whether we are talking about business, sales or winning someone over, persistence, insistence and perseverance can make people uncomfortable.
Tenacity, on the other hand, is using the old result, the old data, to make new decisions in the search for new paths, other ways of reaching our goal when the old habits and methods didn’t work. (Seth Godin)
The telesales companies that call you every day while you are having lunch are persistent. Zara is tenacious.
In other words, you can (and should) be persevering and persistent in pursuing your goal, but persistence and perseverance without tenacity in the pursuit of success are like “speed and power without control”.
A short article, but I think it is perfectly clear.
Further reading
Featured image: Magnify.net from New York, NY, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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