Word #64: Stay.

At Acton, we ponder the concept of mastery often. What this boils down to for me is learning to stay.

Stay the course. Especially when it gets hard. Stay. The process is everything and the learning never ends – unless you quit.

“…There are those of us who are simply self-critical. Even without comparing ourselves to the world’s greatest, we set such high standards for ourselves that neither we nor anyone else could ever meet them – and nothing is more destructive to creativity than this. We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”

From George Leonard’s “Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long Term Fulfillment” – a short and powerful book I highly recommend.