Definition of DeterminationFirmness of resolve whereby an individual doesn't easily give up or become discouraged.
Determination allows you to achieve a goal even where you may not feel particularly motivated at times. This is a type of directed and resilient self-discipline whereby you can control your behavior to achieve real world results. The following are illustrative examples followed by a general discussion. 
Pull Motivation
Pull motivation is when an individual feels drawn to a goal such that it isn't difficult to direct energy and resources into it. For example, a dance student who is drawn to a music career such that they work long hours in this direction.Self-Discipline
Self-discipline is the ability to push yourself to do things you don't feel like doing because you know you should. This almost always beats pull motivation as it allows you to push through hard times and boring tasks where pull motivation is likely to falter. For example, a student who has limited aptitude for math who pushes themself to study for long hours to get reasonable marks because they want to be an engineer.Resilience
Personal resilience is the ability to thrive in stressful circumstances. For example, a university student who completes their degree despite unexpected health problems that make everything far more difficult then they were expecting.Trough Of Sorrow
The trough of sorrow is a difficult time of setbacks on the path to a goal. This period requires confidence in what you are doing as it will easily feel that your goals are out of your reach. Many will emerge from the trough of sorrow as a success whereby it becomes clear that they were closer to their goals then they ever realized. For example, Walt Disney took four years to produce Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and went three times over budget. In fact, its total cost of $1.5 million made it the most expensive cartoon ever produced. Many predicted it would bankrupt Walt Disney's production company. However, upon its initial 1937 release it earned around $6.5 million -- a smashing commercial success for this time. It went on to early a total of about $418 million over all of its releases and is still a well known film today that is regarded as a work of art and cultural icon†.Failure Is Not An Option
The crushing thing about the trough of sorrow is that it can be difficult to tell if you are wasting your time or on the verge of a breakthrough. In this situation, it is common for determined individuals and organizations to adopt a failure is not an option approach. This resembles denial and is painful and expensive. For example, a military organization that invests in a new technology that simply doesn't work that keeps pouring more and more money into the project. This typically results in a pyrrhic victory such as an amazingly late, expensive and useless product that nonetheless is "successfully" launched.Fail Well
I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career.People who are determined can and do fail. In fact, if you are determined it is probably a good idea to embrace failure and learn to do it well. Generally this means designing things to fail cheap, fast and safe so that you can learn and move forward without major losses. For example, a musician who tries to get a track released each week so that they can learn from the successes and failures of each song.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.
~ Michael Jordan as quoted in Nike Culture : The Sign of the Swoosh by Robert Goldman and Stephen Papson
