Goal
This week, I discuss persistence and how to develop it.
Table of Contents
- Persistence Is The Art Of Moving Forward
- Long-Term Accomplishments and Persistence
- How Do You Develop Your Persistence?
- 1. Define your goals, understand your identity, and reflect on your legacy
- 2. Understand Virtue and How Important It Is
- 3. How to make self-reflection a habit
- 4. Reward your good behavior, and you’ll become a better person
- 5. Ignore the noise – the world has nothing to teach you
- Keep Going – The Virtue of Perseverance
- Actionables
Persistence Is The Art Of Moving Forward
Forever onward.
“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” – Harper Lee
What is persistence? Persistence, or perseverance, is endurance in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. To persist is to continue your journey towards greatness despite internal weaknesses and external distractions.
In the short-term, persistence involves keeping your focus and your patience. For example, remaining patient during traffic requires maintaining emotional stability despite your desire for uncontrolled anger. Traffic is the delay in achieving success (arriving at your destination), and your irritation is the difficulty you face in remaining emotionally stable.
Long-Term Accomplishments and Persistence
You cannot do anything meaningful unless you persevere and refuse to give up.
Life is strenuous and full of distractions and roadblocks. If you wish to do anything meaningful, you will face constant challenges and setbacks.
Therefore, you need the ability to push through these difficulties and remain the course. Why? Because you cannot finish long-term goals and desires quickly. However, if you persist through distractions, doubts, and fear, you can accomplish the goals you set for yourself.
How Do You Develop Your Persistence?
The failure to persist is the failure to accomplish great things.
“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” – Martin Luther
Why have I failed to persevere? There are multiple distractions, challenges, and setbacks. However, my inability to push through them comes down to a few elements:
- I’m tired – Exhaustion robs the mind of focus and will. The more tired I am, the less likely I will be able to continue in my duties.
- I need a break – There’s nothing wrong with taking a break. Sometimes, you need to stop working and do something light and engaging.
- I’m losing sight of what’s essential – When I stop persisting, I lose sight of everything I want to do. Additionally, I fail to remember how my efforts will make the world a better place.
- I investigate the world’s noise – There are moments when I foolishly try to understand the current culture by consuming media. This consumption always leaves me depressed and mentally sick. My mental weakness leads to quitting when challenges arise.
- I’m overindulging – I can spend too much time listening to music, looking at photos, or playing games. When I over-indulge, I fail to keep my eye on the prize.
Since life is challenging, when you lack the virtue of perseverance, you cannot live fully. Failing to adhere to persistence means giving up when things get tough.
However, we’ll cover the best ways to help you “still show up” and remain on course.
1. Define your goals, understand your identity, and reflect on your legacy
Always ask: is this the best for me? Am I giving everything I’ve got? Will this course help me achieve what I want?
“You never know what’s around the corner. It could be everything. Or it could be nothing. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, and then one day you look back and you’ve climbed a mountain.” – Tom Hiddleston
As an individualist, you must determine your life goal and understand the essential virtues. These topics are the foundations that will help you build your life. Let me explain why.
Firstly, to persist, you need to go towards something. You cannot continue towards a fog unless you want to get lost. And being lost, especially when it comes to your life’s purpose, means existing for nothing while consuming distractions and momentary pleasures.
This is why you need goals. You need to ask yourself the big questions: What do you want to do before you die? Who do you want to be? What do you want to be remembered for? Furthermore, the more you think about your future and what you want it to look like, the more you can start setting the standards which will help you reach your end goal.
If you do not understand your life’s purpose, you will always feel useless, lost, and scared.
2. Understand Virtue and How Important It Is
Virtue is the key to happiness.
Secondly, you need virtue. Virtue is moral excellence and answers the question, “what is good, and how do I fulfill it?” Virtue, as I describe here, cannot account for a sophisticated legal or moral system. More intelligent people than me can help you with that. However, personal virtue enables you to understand your actions and whether your actions point you towards what is sustainable, meaningful, and productive.
For example, frugality helps you see that saving money is wiser than wasting it. More money in your pocket means more opportunities and less stress. You cannot live a sustainable life or build an endurable society without the virtue of frugality.
To conclude: Purpose and goals give you something to persist towards. Virtue gives you an understanding of what is right and sustainable. The more virtuous your actions, the easier life becomes. The easier life becomes, the more likely you are to continue pursuing your goals.
3. How to make self-reflection a habit
Remember, no days unalert. Every action, thought, and word needs to have a purpose.
Furthermore, you need to track your actions, journal, and reflect on where your life is going and if you want such a destination.
Remember that collectivists train you to stop looking inward. They want your eyes everywhere except your mind and heart. They want you to consume crap media, focus on internet celebrities, and create meaningless relationships with weak, abusive people. Furthermore, collectivists need you to think of your life in terms of the group. A few examples:
- The racists who demand you focus on dating “within your race” instead of finding someone you love
- The socialists who require your focus on the “greater good” instead of your happiness
- The worshippers who demand your obsession with self-pity and guilt instead of your rational pride
Collectivists need your mind distracted. As an individual, you need your mind sharp and focused on your goals. If you remain in the collectivists’ fog, you will always fail to persist towards what matters most to you.
Lastly, frequently ask yourself, “Is this necessary?” when pursuing an action. I promise your mind will provide a clear answer when you need it most.
Rebel against our collectivist, cannibalistic culture. Remain focused on your life, where you want it to go, and what you’d like to accomplish.
4. Reward your good behavior, and you’ll become a better person
Enjoy life by achieving goals and persisting towards greatness.
“The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack in will.” – Vince Lombardi
Life is difficult. However, there are many, many distractions and pleasures to be found. These pleasures can boost your self-improvement if you utilize them effectively and clearly.
My suggestion is to determine a hobby you love doing. This hobby should provide personal fulfillment and enjoyment. Furthermore, your recreation should be realistic and respectful of your budget, responsibilities, and goals.
Set your goals, then create clear rewards. If you complete a big project, you’ll feel better about binging your TV shows. You will feel better eating a snack after you finish a daily reading. Remember, you’ll happily persist towards greatness if you can enjoy pleasures along the way.
5. Ignore the noise – the world has nothing to teach you
The masses will give you nothing but fog, violence, and fear.
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” – Ovid
If you can’t tell, I do not enjoy the current culture. Our culture has produced greedy, narcissistic, scared, depressed, and ignorant individuals. Further, our collectivist mindset is hostile to self-improvement, individualism, and virtue.
Therefore, I suggest disengaging. Delete your social media, reduce your news media consumption, and avoid all anti-individualistic works. Don’t pursue things, ideas, or people who give you an emotional high and little else.
Furthermore, find ways to minimize distractions. Put blocks on your phone, reduce time in front of the computer, and spend more time in nature while meditating. Technology is not bad. However, obsession with technology will drain you of your ability to persist.
Reserve your energy. You’ll find it easier to persist in the face of difficulty if your mind isn’t full of distractions and garbage media.
Keep Going – The Virtue of Perseverance
Excel. Persist towards the accomplishment of your goals. The more you stay the course, the happier you’ll be.
“If you are going through hell, keep going.” – Winston S. Churchill
You have one life. It is your responsibility not to waste it. Never let the world distract you from your purpose. Never let your vices distract you from your goals. You can only achieve greatness if you master the art of moving forward.
Actionables
- What do you think of when you think “persist”? What person, thing, or idea comes to mind? Why?
- Of the items on this list, which is easiest for you? Which is hardest? Why?
- Name one thing you could accomplish if you were more persistent.
Please remember that it’s important to do the actionables. You’re not on this earth to simply read but to do. To become an individual, you must act more than you consume.
*Image credit to Unsplash.
