Orji Chigozie HenryLife requires persistence. If you want to succeed in anything worth pursuing, you will face obstacles and resistance. There will be times when you have to push yourself to keep going forward. When things get difficult or you don’t see immediate results, persistence means you stay committed to your vision instead of running back to comfort.
The key to success in any area of your life is persistence. It’s the foundational skill that separates those who reach their goals from those who don’t. Many teachers, psychologists, and thought leaders highlight persistence as a critical skill. If you want to excel in school, be hired by your dream company, and improve as a leader persistence is mandatory.
The Importance of Persistence
1. Persistence Creates Lasting Success
Success requires patience because few things happen overnight. It takes time to graduate college, earn a promotion, or build new habits. If you want to create meaningful change and succeed in life, you have to do it one day at a time. Every January, everyone starts a new fitness journey. By February most quit. But those who stick with it will create lasting change.
Psychologist Angela Duckworth studied persistence closely and has spent years researching what she calls grit. Duckworth found that persistence is twice as important as talent when it comes to success. Those who finish what they start earn higher grades, achieve their career goals, and appear happier than those who give up when things get tough.
Persistence isn’t just important at the beginning of a challenge, it compounds over time. The more you stick to something the better you will become at persevering through challenges. Think about persistence like a bank account. Each time you act with persistence you are depositing money into your account. Over time these interest will become your success.
2. Persistence Builds Emotion Regulate
Persisting through life’s challenges allows you to experience discomfort without giving up. No matter how well you plan, things can happen to throw you off course. Perhaps you don’t get a promotion you were hoping for. Or you take on a big project that consumes all your free time. Life is full of these types of moments. But if you’ve built persistence you know that this too shall pass.
Positive psychologists study what allows some people to experience difficulty while maintaining mental wellness. They’ve found that persistent people are more likely to have healthy responses to stress. Rather than giving up when faced with problems, they accept negative emotions and push through.
The more you persist, the stronger your emotional bank account will become. You’ll trust that you can handle discomfort and can always rely on yourself to take action. This has benefits beyond persistence because it helps you deal with life’s setbacks healthier.
Related: 12 Reasons Why Determination Is Important for Success
3. Persistence Allows You to Grow
Anytime you want to change yourself, you must be persistent. Whether you want to improve your self-discipline, develop a fitness routine, or evolve your identity. Persistence is a factor. You can start changing yourself right now by trying these habits:
* Wake up 15 minutes early each day
* Write in a journal twice a week
* Meditate for 1 minute a day
* Read 10 pages of a personal development book daily
Change is gradual and subtlety. You can’t sit around waiting for the ‘ideal’ time to start taking action. If you do something once and don’t see massive results you may be tempted to quit. But personal growth is about persisting through these feelings and knowing that change will happen if you just keep pushing.
Self-help writer James Clear talked about how he changed his identity by persisting with small habits. You can’t change overnight. But you can hold yourself accountable to small actions that compound into lifelong results. Persistence means doing those actions no matter how you feel.
4. Persistence Promotes Problem Solving
When you practice persistence, you force yourself to problem solve. Let’s say you want to start a blog but don’t know how to build a website. If you’re persistent you’ll either learn how to build a website or find someone who can help. Instead of giving up because it seems hard, you try different solutions.
According to Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck, persistence can help you maintain a growth mindset. Instead of freezing when things get hard, you look for solutions. Persistence encourages you to look at mistakes as feedback, not failure.
The more problems you solve, the better you will become at handling life’s challenges. Rather than giving into emotion, you will stay calm and evaluate what to do next. Every problem you encounter is a chance to persist and improve your problem-solving ability.
Related: 8 Habits That Make You More Disciplined
5. Persistence Fuels Your Career
Your career will be filled with moments that test your persistence. Maybe you don’t get the job you want or your company faces financial difficulties. There will be times when you feel stuck at work and wonder what purpose it serves. When life happens to your career only persistence will keep you going.
Research has shown that persistence is what causes most successes in life. You will face failure and times of confusion. When those moments come you have to trust that if you keep pushing, things will work out. Thomas Edison failed thousands of times before he perfected the lightbulb. It was his persistence that pushed humanity forward.
Instead of viewing your career as a straight line, view each day as an opportunity to show up no matter what. Persistence means showing up even when you’re laying off coworkers or your manager is not pleased with your work.
6. Persistence Increases Your Self-confidence
The more you persist, the more you prove to yourself that you can get through hard times. When you face a challenge and persist, you’re showing yourself that you can count on you. There will be times when no one else is there for you but you. By being persistent, you’ll build confidence in your ability to handle life’s challenges.
Albert Bandura talked about how persistence increased our sense of self-efficacy. The more we believed we could handle and persist through life’s challenges, the better we handled setbacks. When you have confidence in your ability to persist, you’re more likely to take action.
Think about how many opportunities you let slip from your life because you didn’t act. Had you been persistent, you would’ve seen results over time. I trust myself to persist through life’s challenges. Because of this I feel confident taking risks knowing that I’ll figure it out.
7. Persistence Leads to Happiness
Have you ever noticed that the most success people seem the happiest? Whether they’re wealthy or broke, have lots of friends or few. When we take action toward our goals and persist through challenges we feel better about life. Knowing that we are improving our situation allows us to feel more satisfied with life.
Martin Seligman is the founder of positive psychology. He’s done decades of research on what makes people happy. His research has shown that we’re happier when we persist toward goals that have purpose. Your job will never make you happy unless you find meaning in what you do.
When you show up day after day despite obstacles, you know that you are improving your life. This creates happiness because you understand that there will always be ups and downs, but as long as you’re persistent you’ll experience meaningful life progress.
8. Persistence Teaches Self-discipline
Self-discipline and persistence go hand in hand. You can’t be persistent if you give into your emotions. Think about the last time you were really upset about something. Were you able to control your emotions and stay disciplined?
We tend to think persistence comes from willpower. But if you have ever tried to diet by using willpower alone you know this isn’t true. Willpower is fickle and comes and goes. That’s why you must focus on persistence instead of discipline.
Discipline will come as you persist at showing up day in and day out. Your ability to stick to tasks will improve the more tasks you stick to. You’ll know that you can count on yourself when things get tough, which will strengthen your self-discipline.
9. Persistence Allows You to Experience True Progress
Persistence is what makes the difference between intentions and results. Desires don’t become goals unless you work towards them persistently. Persistence is the bridge between wanting and accomplishing by taking continuous small steps.
Research in sociology and psychology has proven that small steps lead to long-term results. Your life will not be transformed overnight. You will not have a defining moment and wake up to your life suddenly changed. However, if you stay persistent in your small steps you will change your life.
When you decide to be persistent you are deciding to be okay with progress over perfection. Persistence becomes your lifestyle. One that is guided by patience, purpose, and tenacity. Live persistently.
Conclusion
Persistence matters because it is the foundational skill that will improve every area of your life. It allows you to grow as a person, stay disciplined, solve problems, and build your self-confidence. We only get better at being persistent by practicing it daily.
Steve Jobs was fired from the company he started because he didn’t handle persistence well. He soon realized that he needed to persist if he wanted to succeed. Because of his failure, Jobs went on to create one of the most valuable companies in history. Persistence is the difference between giving up on your dreams and living your purpose.
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