With Persistent Practice, You Will Achieve Your Goals

Some time ago, I read about the case of Tony Meléndez, a young Nicaraguan man who was born without arms as a result of a medication his mother took during pregnancy. During his childhood, his parents moved to the United States in order to provide him with better medical care for his condition. At some point during his childhood, Tony began trying to play the keyboard and guitar with his toes. After many years of practice, he developed such skill that he began singing and playing in public venues, impressing everyone with his unusual ability. During his youth, Tony rediscovered his Catholic faith and began to participate actively in his local church’s program. He became so popular in his city’s Catholic circles that he ended up performing musically at as many as five different Masses in the area every Sunday. He attracted the attention of influential people, including one of those responsible for organizing the program for Pope John Paul II’s visit to the United States in 1987.

“Someone got my name from somewhere and asked me to attend a meeting,” Tony recalls in a biographical note. “I wasn’t sure what it was about.” It turned out to be an audition for the event, and Tony was accepted. “I was tremendously excited when I found out,” he adds. Tony’s performance impressed the Pope so much that he rose from his seat, stepped down from the platform, and planted a kiss on the surprised singer. The pontiff’s words greatly encouraged him and transformed his life and musical career: “Tony, you truly are a courageous young man. You are giving hope to all of us. My wish for you is that you continue giving hope to everyone.” The auditorium erupted in enthusiastic applause.

Since then, Tony has traveled all over the world, sung in highly distinguished venues, and won all kinds of prestigious awards recognizing the quality of his music and the great inspiration his life provides to so many people.

Those people who go through the world reaching goals, accomplishing extraordinary things in their lives, conquering mountains, overcoming their flaws and improving their character every day, achieving the impossible, like Tony Meléndez, generally share the common denominator of patience or persistence. Even when things take time, they are able to persist in the vision.

How many years must it have taken Tony to learn to play the guitar with his toes? Right now, try to imagine yourself plucking the strings of a guitar lying on the floor with your big toe while pressing the other strings at the appropriate place on the fretboard with your other toes. It would seem impossible, but through long years of arduous learning, little by little, Tony’s brain adapted so that he could accomplish that feat.

God has endowed human beings with impressive flexibility and potential. Every day, studies by psychologists and neurologists show us the astonishing plasticity of the human brain. Our neurological wiring adapts to the tasks we assign it and develops new circuits in response to the goals we pursue consistently throughout life.

I am sure that if Tony Meléndez’s brain were examined when he dies, it would be discovered that one part of his brain is more developed than that of the average person. That part would surely have to do with the coordination of his toes. Over time, Tony’s brain determined that this part of its neurological structure needed more resources because he was assigning it more sophisticated tasks than usual. Through persistent practice, Tony managed to act upon the very structure of his brain and develop the resources needed to fulfill his astonishing vision.

The same is also true of evil and the bad habits that we frequently allow to rule our lives. If we subject our bodies to improper practices over time, the neurons in our brains adapt. What began as an isolated practice, separate from our enduring personality, becomes a structural part of our being. That is why what we continually practice over time becomes a habit. Habit becomes biology. It then becomes a trait of our character. Finally, it determines our destiny, for it accompanies us throughout life, permanently embedded in the wiring of our neurological system.

God has made us incredibly flexible. We can develop far beyond what our timidity frequently allows us to imagine. Within us dwell marvelous potentialities and mechanisms that merely await our persistent action to rise up and begin humming in obedience to our directives. But those wonderful capacities, divinely established within us, require sustained practice, a persistence that refuses to be defeated.

Only through long-term action are the microprocesses initiated and sustained that ultimately result in powerful skills and heroic achievements in the external world. That is why, when we undertake the fulfillment of a vision, it is important that we commit ourselves to it for the long term, trusting in that mysterious innate capacity within us to develop all the scaffolding we need for triumph.

Even if the vision is slow to become reality, we must persist in it, wooing it and rehearsing it until our inner being conforms to it, until the necessary nutrients and resources arise within us to nourish it and bring it to full fruition. Persist in the calling you have received from God. Like the woman before the unjust judge, keep knocking at the door of your loving Heavenly Father. The one who endures to the end—that one will receive the crown! Perhaps all that will be required is just one more knock for the beautiful vista God has destined for you since the foundation of the world to open before you.

Video: Tony Melendez — Don’t Say, “I Can’t”

Video: Tony Meléndez Sings to John Paul II