Persistence

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing,
great or small, large or petty--never give in.”
Sir Winston Churchill, 1941

Persistence. Always a good trait.

And this advice is as valid today as it was in the dark days of World War II. It is most definitely a Success Trait.

But how do you get to the point where you have that ability to never give up? How do you recognize if you already have it?

There are probably a multitude of suggestions you can find, and here I am going to make one too – probably one you have not previously thought of.

You can both identify and/ or improve your ability to stick with it through the tough times from your handwriting.

Since writing shows personality traits, this includes persistence. And since you can add personality traits to your writing through Graphocoaching / Graphotherapy (which deals with your handwriting), you can add this trait in that way also.

So firstly let’s look at how to identify persistence from handwriting. Sometimes people who would describe themselves as having this trait will comment that they can’t find it in their writing.

This is because there are several traits that create much the same behavior. There is determination, tenacity and don’t forget the often misaligned trait of stubbornness.

Persistence itself shows in writing with an anti-clockwise knot in it.

If this is difficult to visualize, think about the knot that some people write instead of the word “and”. It goes upwards, over to the left, and back across to the right forming a knot or a loop. This same stroke can appear in many other places in writing. It can be in the crossbar of the capital A or H, it can sometimes be created while forming a t-bar.

Everywhere and anywhere this anticlockwise knot appears, you have this trait. The more often it appears, the stronger the trait. But it has to be anti-clockwise. A clockwise does not mean the same.

Determination gives the same effect. It is the determination not to give up and is shown in long, heavy, straight “down strokes.” These are the “tails” on the letters “g”, “y” and “j”. The more “determinedly” these down strokes are written the more the trait is in evidence.

Tenacity on the other hand, shows in a curve that forms a hook. Where a hook is formed at any point in the writing just before the pen is removed from the paper, tenacity is there.

And lastly, but by no means least importantly, is stubbornness.

Most people consider stubbornness to be a negative – and in some ways it can be. However, a great many very successful people are very stubborn indeed! You must admit, a stubborn person certainly hangs in there. They can be infuriating to deal with, but they will “persist” to the end.

Stubbornness shows in writing where the lower case “t” or “d” splays out at the base, to create a wide angle.

It is of course perfectly possible to have several or all of these traits, which will just give an increased intensity over what one trait alone could do.

There are certain other personality traits which spell success most often.

And there are also several traits that can reduce the effect of any of the persistence traits, but that is beyond the scope of this short article.

  © Fiona MacKay Young 2008