Perseverance Is Essential For Your Success

If you’ve ever encountered a series of setbacks in the pursuit of a goal, you may have found yourself feeling like you were failing or that you weren’t “good enough.” While it’s common for limiting beliefs such as these to arise when you’re faced with frustrating obstacles, they could potentially trigger a negative cycle of self-doubt. 

Alina Timofeeva, our guest in The MINDSet Game® podcast, wrestled with a great deal of self-doubt when she was trying to start her career in the finance sector in the U.K. Alina was born in Russia, where she was raised to believe that she would grow up to be a housewife without a career of her own. But as a good student with an aptitude for math, Alina knew from an early age that she wanted more from her life. After attending university and graduate school, in addition to working a variety of restaurant jobs, she decided to take the leap and began applying for jobs at companies in the U.K. – a process that proved to be far from easy. However, despite receiving hundreds of rejections and questioning whether she was truly qualified, Alina persevered and eventually landed a position as an analyst. 

After progressing very quickly in her career, Alina is now a multi-award-winning principal at global strategy consulting firm Oliver Wyman. She also serves as a mentor to women and migrants from diverse cultural and social backgrounds, and is a TEDx speaker whose presentation, “Fail But Never Give Up,” has received hundreds of thousands of views. In this episode, Alina shares stories from her personal and professional life and the lessons she’s learned along the way. 

Alina’s advice for people facing setbacks in reaching their goals

Reflecting on the frustration she felt when receiving rejection after rejection from the companies to which she applied, Alina says that it’s important to remember that the process of pursuing your goals is truly a journey. Setbacks are inevitable, and even after achieving key milestones, you may encounter more challenges and failures. It can be difficult to predict when things will turn around and you’ll start to feel like you’ve succeeded, so it’s crucial to keep persevering and adapting as needed. 

Alina also stresses the importance of trying to quell self-doubt, because when the voice in your mind starts sending you negative messages, it’s easy to lose confidence and begin overthinking everything. The key is to remind yourself that you’re on a journey that will contain many successes and failures, and to try to extract lessons from challenging situations. 

Advice for those who feel like they don’t fit in

After finally securing her analyst position, Alina found that she was one of the only non-British people in her workplace. With a different cultural background and many viewpoints that differed from those of her coworkers, she often felt like she didn’t belong. From this experience, she learned an important lesson: “The first person you need to convince that you're worthy, and that you belong and that you fit in…is yourself.” To do this, she suggests reminding yourself that everyone—no matter how talented, successful, or fortunate they may seem—is a human being with their own struggles and insecurities. By releasing self-doubts and shifting your mindset to view yourself as no different than the people you may aspire to be like, you will gain the confidence to achieve your goals while leading others to perceive you as more capable. 

For more of Alina’s words of wisdom, tune into Episode 98 of The MINDSet Game, search for Alina Timofeeva on LinkedIn, or find her TEDx talk on YouTube.